


calling for my soul at the corners of the world

by metonymy



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Big Bang, Multi, Post-Movie, Road Trips, Self-Harm, dream death, dream suicide, inception_bang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-27
Updated: 2012-01-27
Packaged: 2017-10-30 04:32:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 38,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/327754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metonymy/pseuds/metonymy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ariadne always seems to be reenacting other people's stories. After inception, school is too safe and extraction too risky; what turns out to be just right is a new career as a consultant in dreamsharing research with neuroscientists. But maybe that isn't right either. And Arthur draws her into dreaming and out of her safe, familiar life, and Eames drifts in and out of her life with equal parts revelry and revelations, but she doesn't want to be her namesake and be abandoned or saved. She wants to be the one finding her own way through the maze, the one to sail off into forever. If she plays her moves wisely she just might get everything she ever wanted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**01 // greed is the gift for the sons of the sons**

 

Things go so quickly that Ariadne doesn't have time to wonder what she's gotten herself into until she's on a plane from Paris to Sydney.

Nobody tells her to dress up; she's not a child, and while there are moments when her youth and inexperience flare up brightly and pick her out, this job is so unprecedented that everyone is inexperienced in one way or another. Eames might know the human psyche inside and out, but he knows no more of compounds than that they come in a little glass vial. Yusuf may be formulating a special blend by hand in his makeshift lab, but he cheerfully admits that he would not have thought of the plane ride or been able to secure the entire first class cabin even without Saito's intervening hand. Their benefactor is as eager to learn as Ariadne is, she thinks, remembering him hovering on the periphery of their meetings, and while she hesitates to guess about his prior ventures in shared dreaming or criminality she knows that this is new for him too. Arthur plans everything but cannot draw a maze to save his life, as he memorably demonstrated on a training run when he deliberately provoked her projections. Cobb is holding everything so close to his chest that his skills are downplayed, but all of that is diminished by the shade of Mal that threatens all of them. And she's new to everything, she's smart enough to know her limits, but she knows she is really, _really_ good at building these worlds from the inside out.

She also knows that showing up in thrift-store trousers and her favorite threadbare red blazer would make her instantly memorable in first class, and that's something none of them want. So she puts a bit more on her groaning credit card (if this works then she'll be able to pay it all off - and her student loans - and her parents' mortgage) and buys an outfit or two for the trip.

In the airport she sees the rest of the team; they're traveling separately so as not to appear conspicuous. But she can sense them as if invisible threads connect them all, her namesake's spool stretching out from her and twining around these criminals with whom she's somehow become entangled. On the long flight to Sydney she has a row to herself, chance or Saito or whatever, and she leans her head against the plastic of the cabin wall and sleeps. When she wakes up she can see their heads, Yusuf's curls catching shadows, Eames' long nose tilted up as he sleeps, Cobb bent over his secret thoughts and Arthur's hair gleaming dully like a crow's wing.

Her dreams are full of mazes, a palm's worth of coarse thread spilling over from the scarf around her neck, and men in the shadows. If she sees Mal she doesn't remember it. She wakes with a scowl on her face. Couldn't her subconscious be a little more creative with the symbolism? Did her parents doom her to a life of labyrinths and allusion? If she'd been named something like Emily or Catherine would she be on this plane, on her way to break into someone's mind and remake his world? Or would she be back home, married to a college boyfriend and working a nothing job and chafing at the boundaries of her life? Does a name hold that much power, or does it only count if you have a famous tragic heroine for a namesake?

At the airport in Australia she stumbles into the bathroom and looks at herself, eyes ringed by dark circles. She brushes her hair mechanically and is vaguely aware of the other women passing behind her with suitcases and children and their own heads full of dreams. Would any of them take this chance? Leave behind whatever ethics they might have had to help plant an idea in a man's mind? A seed that will grow and spread and flower like an invasive strain, vines working their way in till the structure falls along with his father's corporation?

What is she doing here?

And the answer turns out to be - saving Dominic Cobb's mind.

After that, everything else seems to fall away.

 

**02 // we're just impostors in this country you know**

 

The airport feels more dreamlike than the last two days have been, spent mostly in the air and mostly asleep, racing against time and projections and the slow collapse of all their plans. Now the ground is solid under her feet, the refrigerated air punctuated by blasts of warmth as the doors open. People are moving and she feels a headache crawling around the edges of her skull. International travel is hell, but is it still jet lag if she's hung over from being inside three layers of dreamspace and surviving falling over a bridge, an exploding elevator, falling thousands of feet? She wishes badly for a moment that she was being met by someone - anyone - but the only faces she recognizes are the men with whom she's just committed several crimes. And their victim. Arthur's eyes meet hers, then slide away. Eames walks past, but Yusuf gives her the ghost of a smile. He's off to a connecting flight, she knows. They all scatter. They can't know each other here. She wants to curl into a ball and - she isn't sure. Weep or laugh or simply huddle away from the world.

A few hours later, though, Ariadne is lying on the bed and trying to convince her head that it's not going to explode when her phone buzzes and falls off the nightstand. It's a text from Arthur's number, giving her an address and a time. The time is two hours from now; she isn't sure why he wants to meet her when he was so insistent that they leave and not have contact after the job. But then there's that kiss he gave her, and that sly smile, and the touch of his fingers on her wrist. There are questions she wants to ask him, but she isn't sure where to start.

A shower leaves her feeling slightly more human and she stares at herself in front of the mirror again, not sure what to do with her hair. She settles for drying it into its normal waves. But she leaves the scarf off and dabs a little perfume at her throat, the iris and clove scent grounding her. Things never smell right in dreams. Then she stares at her suitcase, willing it to produce something new and impeccably stylish before she scolds herself for being an idiot. Clearly she's overthinking this. But she still digs out the one dress she brought and slips it on, adding the white jacket over the top. At least nobody looking for her will expect her to be wearing a dress.

Arthur's mystery address turns out to be a bar, lights glowing through the windows and gleaming on his hair as he stands outside. It's too hot in Los Angeles for his customary layers. But he still seems to outclass her in a crisp shirt and those same light trousers. "You look like you should be in the Great Gatsby," she says, and he gives her that small courtly smile.

"Come on," he says, his hand heavy between her shoulder blades as he steers her through the door.

She sees the profile before anything else, tilted to look back at the bar and framed perfectly against the dance floor. The entire night seems to shift and rearrange around her; this isn't what she thought it was. If Eames is here, maybe Cobb is? Maybe Yusuf's catching a later flight? Then he turns and smiles at them both and things snap back into place. Whatever's going on, she won't be able to sort it out by acting like some simpering fool. Eames is somehow taking up the entire bench on his side of the booth; Arthur slides in beside her facing the other man and summons a waiter.

They don't talk about the job, of course. They don't talk about work at all, though clearly some of the more far-flung locales Eames describes would have been places he pulled jobs. But instead they talk about traveling, and their favorite cities, and she and Eames almost slip from a friendly debate to an actual argument about Montreal, and Arthur is the only one who sticks up for Chicago. Ariadne's never been and he smiles and tells her she should, she'd love it. Somewhere in there his arm has made its way over the back of the booth, close enough to drape over her shoulders but loose enough for plausible deniability. He only has one drink but seems to relax more as the evening goes on, his banter with Eames never turning unpleasant. Ariadne feels a warm glow spread through her, and she's pretty sure it's not from the drinks, because she's barely touched her second glass.

Eames finishes his drink and tosses a few bills on the table, then stands. "Keep out of trouble, children," he says, leaning over. Ariadne thinks he's going to kiss her on the forehead and doesn't move, but she's a little startled when his full lips brush over her own mouth instead. She can feel Arthur's arm at her back shift slightly, like he's deciding whether or not he wants to jump up and defend her honor or something, but he sits calmly until Eames pulls away. Then he turns to her as Eames walks away. "I'll drive you home," he tells her.

"Do you have a car?" she asks, eyebrows going up. He smiles.

They drive with the windows down, the wind combing through her hair and sending it whipping through the car. At the hotel he gets out and gives the key to a valet, and she pauses on the sidewalk for a moment.

"What, are you staying here?"

He looks back at her, one eyebrow cocked - and she immediately kicks herself mentally for thinking that word. If this is a seduction, he's certainly leaving her most of the work. Ariadne rolls her eyes and heads inside. There's his hand on her back again as he follows her in. She's not sure why, or how it stays so perfectly between her shoulder blades. The gesture is protective - and perhaps a little possessive. In the elevator, though, his hand slides down below her waist. Just low enough to promise what she hopes they're heading towards.

At her door she pauses and looks back at him, and his hands are in his pockets. She sighs. "Don't just stand there, come on." So he makes his way in and sits down on the couch, tactfully ignoring her boots on the floor and her towel thrown over the back of the chair at the desk. Ariadne kicks her heels off, drops her jacket, and sits down on the coffee table in front of him, nudging her way past his knees.

"Why did you kiss me?" she asks. His eyes widen just a little, and she guesses he wasn't expecting to be called on it. "Because that's a pretty terrible distraction."

"It was --"

"Worth a shot, I know. So is it? Now that we're not about to get killed by projections?"

He raises his hand and combs his fingers through her hair, brushing her temple lightly and down the curve of her cheek. This time she's expecting it when his mouth meets hers. But the kiss quickly deepens, and when he pulls back it's just enough to catch his breath. And then he's grinning as she shifts off the table and onto his lap, straddling him. Her dress slides up her thighs and his hands spread warm and wide over her back and she's not sure whether this is a terrible mistake. They kiss for what feels like forever, until he mouths his way down her jaw and onto the line of her neck, burying her face in the curve of her shoulder. Her hair falls away from her face; she feels utterly wanton as his mouth works against her skin. She'll probably have a spectacular bruise tomorrow. Good thing she has her scarves. At that thought she giggles and he stops.

"I thought this was what you wanted," he says.

"It is," she answers, and sets her mouth over his again.

If there's one blessing she can take from this encounter, it's that she is entirely too exhausted to dream by the time he finally lets her fall asleep. In the end she comes three times, the first slow and deliberate, the second hurried as he works towards his own release, and the third achingly drawn out as he teases her oversensitive flesh with delicate movements, coaxing her to that peak one more time with filthy words that are almost more arousing than the flick of his tongue against her. He crawls up the bed as she lies there catching her breath, sprawls on his stomach and throws an arm over her waist and falls asleep almost instantly. The weight feels like a bulwark against anything bad that could possibly happen as she drifts off. And yet she still wakes up to that sickening sensation of falling, of eyes like a Fury's, of a lilting voice speaking half-truths.

Arthur is lounging on the sofa in one of the hotel bathrobes, looking more relaxed than she's ever seen him. He looks over as she struggles to sit upright, glancing away from the muted television and staring. At what, she's not sure. His hair is loose and curling slightly around his face, a shadow of stubble on his jaw, and though she feels grimy and exhausted she can feel that spark of desire again. She thinks firmly at her body to stop being ridiculous. A slow, lazy smile spreads across his face like honey. It's so self-satisfied that it needs to be kissed off his face immediately. But he's all the way across the room.

"I was wondering if you would ever get up."

"I'm not up," she says, falling backwards and letting the pillows block out the world. If she doesn't get up, this doesn't have to end. Not like a dream, she thinks firmly. Dreams end when you wake up. This newly improbable reality could be stretched out indefinitely. The springs of the sofa creak and the mattress dips and he's there leaning over her, those long fingers pushing her hair away from her face, framing the curve of her cheek.

"I ordered breakfast, but you don't have to get up," he says. She wraps a hand around a fluffy lapel and pulls him down, tasting the mint on his breath and realizing how badly she needs a shower.

Later they're perched on the bed, a tray between them with coffee tilting in the cups, his shirt from last night serving as her temporary robe. He's studiously buttering a muffin when she can't keep her mouth shut any longer.

"Let's go," she says.

"Where?" He looks less surprised than she thought he would. All that training, perhaps. Never give anything away.

"I don't know. San Francisco? I've always wanted to visit there."

He gives her a long, measuring look. Spontaneity does not seem to be an element of Arthur's life. Sure, sometimes plans go to hell, but Ariadne would bet that he not only has a plan B, he has a plan C through Z inclusive. He can improvise if all of that falls through, but he's essentially reactive, she's coming to realize. The point man needs someone else to take initiative. Then he smiles. "Okay. Why not?"

They take Arthur's rental car and drive up the coastline, the wind tangling her hair. Arthur is so quiet that she chatters to fill the space, and Ariadne finds herself telling him her life story. About growing up alone and different and never being particularly troubled by that. He seems to relax as they cross climates, says things at all the right points, but he doesn't always share things in return. When she gasps awake beside him in the anonymous darkness, he doesn't ask if she's had a nightmare, just turns and tucks an arm over her waist or rubs the space between her shoulder blades. It's hard to tell when he's sleeping or just lying there awake, breath deep and even until he suddenly speaks. A few things come out now and then, flashes of what's lying deep under the surface like glimmers in a stream. He parcels out truths with care, weighing them carefully before depositing them in her hands. Perhaps he's afraid of what she might do with them. It's not like he's cold; his smile is a miracle every time and she tells worse and worse jokes to get him to laugh, and he reaches for her hand or puts his arm around her when they're walking down the street of whatever town they've stopped in for the night. But there's a fundamental reserve, a locked door at the core of him that she's only started to glimpse. His smiles are glimpses at what might be underneath. So are his silences.

After San Francisco it's Portland, and jokes about hipsters and how Ariadne has found her people; after that it's Seattle, and kissing in the rain and tiny cups of gelato.Then Coeur D'Alene, hours of driving across the west and relearning the meaning of the sky. They check into motels under false names, making a game of it, taking turns giving names from old movies and paying in cash. She starts taking photographs and he teases her about her attempts at art, but stops when she buys a sketchpad and seems to actually impress him with her figures and quick portraits along with her architectural drawings. Days blur together into one long silver and blue stretch of radio static. The air through the window starts to taste like summer.

 

**03 // what is termed a landslide of principle**

 

The trip stretches on through June, days becoming warmer and the sun bringing out threads of gold in her hair. She's afraid to name what's going on, risk blowing things up. Arthur gives his loyalty sparingly, she knows that. His true friends are named and numbered and laid out in orderly fashion like bullets in a magazine. Everybody else is an associate. Ariadne wonders if the sex makes her different or if she's just another contact he'll memorize before tearing up the business card. Someone to be called upon when she could be useful.

She's learned a lot of things about him along the way. His last name; he's half-Jewish; he always drinks his coffee black and his tea with milk; the scent of his skin under his cologne. She knows how his eyes flutter shut when he tastes something sublime and how they crinkle at the corners when he laughs. But that door inside him is still closed, even if she manages to peer through the keyhole now and then. Ariadne takes it as a reminder and a warning. It's not how she lives - he knows almost everything about her at this point - but it does mean that someday they're going to come to a definite difference of opinion.

They reach Chicago, and he takes her to a hotel in a brick building with crumbling mortar and heavy plaster mouldings. She can tell he thought she'd like it, and she does. But when they go up to the room and she drop-kicks her suitcase into the closet, he doesn't let go of his.

"I'll see you in a few hours, all right?" he says, hand in his pocket and the other one around the handle of his bag.

"Where are you going?" she asks. He starts to form an answer, then shrugs.

"I'll be back later."

Ariadne puzzles over this as she unpacks and brushes her hair and heads out to explore the area, quiet but bearing the signs of impending gentrification and giving her material enough to fill another few pages to her sketchbook. He texts her later, once again with an address and time. It's like the past weeks never happened. She feels more like a petulant child than ever, and she doesn't bother dressing up; wherever he takes her can cope with her jeans and comfortably worn-in boots. It turns out to be a quiet neighborhood sort of joint where steaming bowls of pho unbalance the rickety tables. Ariadne doesn't want to cause a scene but the questions she's been carrying in her chest demand answers.

The waitress is an older woman, almost grandmotherly, and she smiles at Arthur and starts to guess his order before he opens his mouth. "And your girlfriend, what does she want?" His jaw tightens as he nods at her and Ariadne hastily orders a bowl of pho tai. He glances at the waitress like she's just sold him out, a Judas in a flowery apron.

"You live here, don't you," she says after the waitress leaves, watching his face closely. The pause tells her everything she needs to know. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Everybody needs some things to stay private," he answers. He's not looking at her and Ariadne suddenly feels queasy. Is he breaking up with her? They hadn't even gotten so far as to name what they were - the waitress used the word _girlfriend_ before either of them had - but hiding the fact that he even lived in the city was a little bigger than that. And he took her to a hotel instead of his apartment. Maybe Ariadne is a little more flexible about these things than he is, but crashing at his place wouldn't be the worst invasion of his privacy ever, would it?

"Things like the fact that you live in the greater metropolitan area?" she asks, trying to keep her voice light. A telltale wobble makes him look up sharply and she looks away just as quickly.

"I didn't think it was important." A lie. On top of lying by omission. The temptation to cause a scene is strong.

"That's bullshit," she says instead. She risks a glance at him and he's looking past her at the door. Usually she chalks this up to paranoia, but right now it feels like he's trying not to look her in the eye. She sits mute and miserable through the rest of the meal, telling herself that the prickling in her eyes is from the sriracha.

After their plates are cleared, she stands. For once in a long while it seems that she's surprised him.

"Let me walk you back," he says.

"I'll find my own way, thanks," she answers. Her mother's voice echoes in her head telling her to be nice, but there doesn't seem to be any point in that now.

The bed seems entirely too big and too cold. An illusion, she tells herself, and settles right in the middle. When she wakes up she's curled on the left side as if he's just gotten up a few moments before from being wrapped around her back. The water isn't running in the shower, though. Nothing betrays his presence and she knows he didn't come after her. Somewhere in the city he's waking up in his own bed, making his coffee, sitting in his own kitchen. A wave of homesickness hits her and washes past. This trip has taken enough time. Enough of her energy has been spent.

An hour later she's checking out of the hotel and catching a cab to the airport. The whole time she's making deals with herself, hedging her bets, telling herself she'll turn back if he calls - in the lobby, at the airport, in security, waiting at the gate. Her phone doesn't ring. When she turns it on again after they land there are no messages waiting. She tells herself it was sweet for a while, but clearly now it's time to move on. If she doesn't think about it too hard she can almost believe it.

 

**04 // always did prefer the drizzle to the rain**

 

She hopscotches across the country by herself this time: landing in Memphis and eating her weight in barbecue, a weekend in New Orleans where she takes two hundred pictures of buildings in various states of disrepair, stopping in New York and spending an entire day in Central Park drawing the passersby. The ache in her chest lessens. It's not as if they ever made any promises. Not as if he ever really opened up to her. Not as if it meant anything. Repeating it doesn't make her believe it, but it becomes familiar as a catechism: none of it meant anything. For a moment she considers telling herself it was just another dream, the haze before waking when lucidity intrudes and the awareness of the dream presses at the skin of unreality. But her heart rebels against that. She can't leave the world of dreaming behind, not now, and if she's going to pursue it she'll have to be ruthlessly clear about what is real and what is not. Even if what's real is painful and messy and hurts.

In London she digs into the bottom of her satchel and extracts a number scribbled on the back of a bar tab, dialing on her new phone as she hides from the lowering gray clouds outside. The plastic feels cheap and light in her hand as if it's going to break between her clutching fingers.

"Hello?" The voice sounds brusque, distracted.

"Eames? It's Ariadne."

"Ariadne, darling! What a delightful surprise." He flips from cold to warm as easily as the turn of his poker chip in his hand and tells her he'll be there to escort her from Heathrow or whatever tube station she might choose.

He sweeps her through the city, shouldering her bag easily and tucking her arm into his own and transforming from the well-mannered thug she remembers to a perfect gentleman. It looks like he's slimmed down since she saw him last, neck not quite as thick and shoulders a little less hulking, but she still feels like a bird fluttering around him while he stands steady as an oak.

Eames' apartment - _flat_ , he says - is nicer than she would have guessed. There are bits and pieces that have his feel around them; what might be an antique hookah or an ornate set of bagpipes, a little statue of an elephant, some photographs and sketches tacked up. Still, there's an air of neglect around the place, even if it's not exactly coated in dust. It feels as though it's waiting for him.

"Do you live here?" she asks, running a finger over an ornately carved box made of dark wood.

"Occasionally. Stay as long as you like," he adds, producing a set of keys out of nowhere and tossing it to her. The ring holds a heavy lump of cloudy rose quartz that's been carved into a hexagonal prism. "But first, let me take you out for dinner and you can tell me everything you've been doing since Los Angeles." There's no stress on the double entendre but it's plain enough. Ariadne refuses to blush.

He takes her out for curry that sears her mouth and drinks and kisses her on the forehead when he steers her into the guest room. The sheets smell like lavender. But the soothing scent doesn't keep her dreams untroubled. Arms pull her down into waves that roll over her face, the cold scent of metal and gunpowder choking her through the pounding surf, and she fights and fights until she flounders into wakefulness and a bed of tangled sheets.

Ariadne pads into the kitchen to get a drink of water, and when she turns back to the living room Eames has appeared silently. To her credit she does not spill all over herself.

"Can't sleep?" he asks.

"Nightmares. Occupational hazard, I guess," she says, trying to make a joke out of it. But it's clear he sees it as nothing but, joining her on the sofa and sitting close enough that she can feel his warmth.

"They happen. But you went through more than most, and on your first job." He turns and moves a lock of hair from where it's still plastered, sweat-damp, to her neck. "He asked too much of you."

She never told Arthur about Limbo. But it seems right to tell Eames. He knows all the right words to say. And he's no defender of Cobb, he'll blame the extractor for putting the team in danger and going too far in pursuit of exorcising his grief - because of course it wasn't about his children. Arthur would disagree, would say he went to lengths that were necessary. Arthur defends Cobb too much, Ariadne thinks to herself.

But she tells Eames about plugging in and waking up, washing up, on the coastline of a crumbling city, a private paradise that was rotted and decayed from the core outwards. The canker at the center of it: the story Cobb never told, the reason he knew inception could work. The shade animating the place, the parasite of grief and guilt given shape in the beautiful dead face of Mal. Fischer cowering on the porch. Firing a gun for the first time, in dreams or reality. At some point in there Eames' hand goes from her arm to her shoulder and around her back, and she ends up half-speaking into his chest, words slurring as sleep overtakes her. The worst bedtime story ever, she thinks, and chuckles. He strokes her hair again and tells her to close her eyes.

And in some ways falling asleep in his arms and waking up there, on the old sagging sofa, is more intimate than what happens two days later when they're cooking dinner together. Ariadne asks to taste the sauce and Eames offers her a spoonful and watches her with intent eyes as she sucks on the spoon. The metal clinks against her teeth as she pulls it out, and she's not sure afterwards which one of them moves first. When she kisses him she can taste wine and tomatoes and garlic. She retains enough presence of mind to turn off the stove as he crowds her backwards against the counter and slides his hands under her shirt.

He's so much bigger than her that it could be awkward or unnerving how easily he lifts her up to sit on the counter. Instead it's just - well, it's hot, seeing those muscles working under stark lines of ink as he strips off his shirt and starts diligently applying himself to raising a spectacular series of marks on her neck. She wraps her legs around his hips and drags her fingers up and down the curving muscles on his back and the thick column of his waist as he mouths over her skin. One of his hands slides up and flicks open her bra, and she'd be amused if he wasn't scratching lightly down her back which feels better than she expects it to. Her head lolls back when he nips at her earlobe and her skull smacks right into the cabinet. It's more noise than actual damage, and she's starting to laugh it off when Eames picks her up and starts carrying her out of the kitchen, which just makes her laugh harder as she winds her legs more tightly around his hips and clings to those stupid over-muscled shoulders.

"Are you laughing at me, pet?" he asks, pausing halfway through the living room. "Because I can leave you here, if you like."

"No, no, I'm good," she says, and attempts to lever herself a little higher. Instead she mostly succeeds in grinding her pelvis against his stomach, which makes him groan.

"Right. Bedroom. Yours or mine?"

"Yours? Bigger bed." Which she's seen through the open door but hasn't tried out. The bed turns out to be luxuriously soft. When Eames sets her down she spends a moment sprawling into the duvet and humming happily. She opens her eyes to see Eames looking down at her with amusement, hands paused midway through unbuttoning his jeans.

"Shall I leave you two alone?"

"You can stay and watch," she offers. He takes a sharp breath and joins her on the bed.

"Maybe next time," he says, pushing her shirt up and smoothing his palms over her breasts. She pulls him down and doesn't talk much more after that, although she learns some new curse words from Eames. And just like that, they're having sex. Frequently. But nothing else really changes between them.

There's no agreement with him. There's even less tension. Just companionship and understanding and stealing pencils and jockeying for the best light. He takes her to museums and restaurants and shows off his city. Sometimes he'll tug her jeans down and lay her on the desk and lick into her, fingers spreading her wide and that clever tongue leaving her shivering and shaky, feeling detached from herself. Sometimes she slides into bed with him and guides him into her, rocking slowly in the cocoon of his sheets. And sometimes she wakes up in the middle of the night and he soothes her back to sleep. That makes her feel closer to him, seeking solace, than simply enjoying each other and the impressive amounts of sex.

Even though she's staying in one city she feels like she's floating. There's even less direction to her life. The sun breaks through the clouds more often but London is still rainy on the best days as the summer comes to its full. Nothing's tying her here. But she feels less and less inclined to leave.

 

**05 // she's gone to the other side giving us a yo heave ho**

 

After so many weeks on the road it's nice to be in one place for a while. Of course, being settled means that the uncomfortable realities of the life she left in Paris have a chance to catch up to her. Ariadne's parents call and the conversation is elliptical, full of long silences and spaces where nobody knows what to say. She was supposed to come back to Maine at the end of the summer, _la morte-saison,_ for the tail end of the season and a clambake and all that sort of thing. Her mother was disappointed, her father even more so, and they wanted to know what was so important that was keeping her away.

How was she supposed to explain this? That she's hanging out with a criminal? A man whose first name she doesn't even know? Is she a kept woman now? She traces these questions into the mazes she draws in the sketchbook Eames brought her.

The alchemy of dreaming is so different from anything they brought her up to expect. They're both hidebound academics of the worst sort. Lives based entirely on dead languages and artifacts from another time, things that nobody has touched in a thousand years. They have a hard time programming the DVR, for fuck's sake. How would she explain a piece of cutting-edge secret military technology that shouldn't even exist?

They interpret, dissect, analyze. She creates. Which is a simplistic reduction of the worst kind, she knows, and her father would look over his glasses and tell her to try again. But that's how it feels. When she dreams of libraries it's to create shelves that stagger into infinity, not to place her works beside the rest of the canon.

If she wanted, she could build them a temple, a reconstruction of the Parthenon, the caves of the Eleusinian Mysteries with the scent of drugged wine and psychogenic mushrooms. She could build them her own labyrinth and let them fill it with Theseus, with Athenian youths, with a minotaur and the hot rank stink of its breath. But they want something they can touch, something that will last for centuries. One of her models sits on a side table in the living room of their house. It's so old and so awful it's embarrassing, but her parents are still proud.

And it's not that she's ashamed of them, exactly. If she graduates - if she goes back to school and finishes her degree - she's sure they will fly to Paris and take her out for dinner and chat animatedly with Professor Miles and meet her school friends and coo over her tiny garret and order dinner in badly accented but grammatically flawless French. She knows that they taught her to love puzzles and solving them, whether that meant finding the end of a maze or the motivations behind an action. She's just old enough to be tired of their influence in her life and not quite old enough to love them as equals.

It's a bit strange that this year of all years they should suddenly want to see her. As soon as she went to college she was gone for good, even if she was still coming home for holidays and telephoning regularly like a dutiful daughter. Not another summer in the lobster shack, that was for damn sure. But there's an undercurrent of worry now, Dad assuring her that she can come home whenever she needs to, her mother wondering if everything's all right. The noise that catches in her throat isn't a laugh or a sob, just a wordless cry that no, everything is not all right. She's trying to gather the fragments of her life together again.

Eames doesn't quite understand this push and pull. She's not sure what they are exactly but it doesn't gnaw at her the way it did with Arthur. But they talk a great deal more, and she occasionally reminds him not to lie to her. He says he finds her honesty refreshing. Of course he never expected her to tell him anything but the truth. But Ariadne is a terrible liar. And in return it seems he's trusted her with facts - and that says more than any complete history Arthur could have given her. When he says he never felt close to his parents, there's a ring of truth to it. Not that that makes him unique.

One afternoon he takes a call and leans against the window, the pearly light of sun through clouds catching on the shiny fabric of his shirt, and takes notes on the back of a takeaway menu. He always looks fantastically louche, as if he's just waiting for the call to star in the next Bond movie.

"A job?" she asks later.

"Possibly," he answers. Her legs are draped over his lap and he runs his hand up and down her shin, riffling the hairs there.

"Do they need an architect?" It feels like there should be more emphasis, a moment when she's crossed to the other side, but there's no tolling bell or any sign that she's choosing a new life for herself. But instead he tilts his head and considers her, the three-quarter view of his face obscuring whatever emotion might lie behind the careful examination of her features. She feels young and small and childish and defiant. Finally he shrugs.

"I'll ask when they call next," he says, cupping her heel. And there it is, it's done.

 

**06 // she never finds no trouble, she tries too hard she's oblivious despite herself**

 

They fly into Lisbon. The heat is staggering, and the hat Eames buys for her does very little to shield her face from the sun. Scarves are tucked back into the suitcase she brought and ignored. When they're alone Eames twists tendrils of hair away from her sweaty neck and kisses away the salt. She's so hot that it's annoying rather than arousing.

"If you keep that up I'm going to shoot you," she says, shrugging irritably.

"I should never have bought you a gun," he answers. Not that either of them expect her to use it, but it appears to come with the job along with learning how to insert IVs and calculate dosages based on weight. Which will be particularly handy when she goes back to class in the fall. University seems a world away right now. Still, enough of her training sticks around to make her grind her teeth at the Post-Modernist buildings. Ariadne has never thought of herself as being overly sentimental about the past, and her designs for the dreams were crisp and angular, but these squared-off shapes are blocky and ugly and brutish.

The job is an easy one, they tell her, and there's no need for her to go under. Lewis, the extractor, bats away her requests for more information. She's an architect, not a therapist, and background isn't important. Ariadne bites her tongue to hide the protests; this is her first real job and she wants to do it right. Blair is the chemist and hides in the walk-in closet with her vials and bottles. There's something she's not telling them.

It's too easy to simply accept their explanations and move along. The job only needs two levels, a park and an apartment, and Lewis and Eames supply her with references. Building a park is more fun than Ariadne had expected it to be; she spends a lot of time in the Praça do Império but adds in details from the Public Gardens, Central Park, the Jardin des Tuileries. Hedgerows would be the easy way out; instead she sticks to gravel paths that intersect with open areas and get blocked off by fountains and shrubberies and intricate sprays of flowers. She starts experimenting with sounds and birdsong, and wonders whether she could fill the dream with her own projections. They're supplied by the subject, she knows, but what if she could make people or animals that were scenery as much as the topiaries or the playground?

Lewis chides her for spending too much time on fripperies; nobody will notice, he says. Ariadne doesn't believe this, but she doesn't look to Eames for confirmation of the wrongness of this criticism. He's remaining distant while they're on the job. It's something she appreciates. Instead of feeling like the girl he brought along, she's just another member of the team. A junior member, perhaps, and she gets the impression that many extractors don't understand the importance of good architecture. But she moves along, teaching him and Eames the level and going to work on the apartment. It's meant to be light and airy, more like an actual place than a half-familiar amalgamation. While they say they can't bring her there in person, they give her plenty of photographs and Eames gives her notes, and they go under and he edits the dream slightly and offers suggestions right down to the child's drawings stuck on the fridge.

That's mildly disquieting, the thought that they are messing with someone with a real life and family. Nobody tells her much about the mark but playing on anyone's sympathies is a good way to gain trust and information. What better way than to make them feel comfortably at home? After all, not every mark can be a lonely fatherless multibillionaire with a yearning for reconciliation with his father. Some of them must be much more routine. People who have access to information - secretaries, personal assistants, underlings with an axe to grind. The curtains in the apartment are a sunny yellow and the drawings show a mommy and a daddy and a little dog and a child and a house. The dog and the house appear to be equally aspirational.

Three days later the job is finally going off. Ariadne isn't going under, she isn't even going to be in the same room; it's a two-man job with Lewis on the first level and Eames on the second and Forging someone. She hasn't paid much attention to his end of the job, though she's noted some mannerisms creeping in that are definitely borrowed. A particular flick of the wrist when pouring wine, a way of throwing his head back and laughing, a slight lean in with eyes intent on hers that reminds her oddly of Arthur in its focus. Nominally Ariadne is the lookout, though Blair is watching over the men and the mark and monitoring the Somnacin dosage. Ariadne brings her gun and a book and keeps an eye on the time. And she would never have known that anything was wrong if they hadn't been late. A few minutes pass, then another few, and it's a full quarter of an hour after they were all supposed to be out of the building and Ariadne can't wait any longer. She heads into the room down the hall and stops, feeling a wave of sickness rising in her throat.

There on the floor between Lewis and Eames is a child. She looks to be about six or seven, a yellow ruffled sundress spilling over the carpet and shiny black hair strewn over a pillow that's far too large for her. Her eyelashes flutter against the blue circles under her eyes. A plastic tube snakes from her wrist to the PASIV, the wristband looped far too loosely around the pudgy joint. As Ariadne stumbles backwards she sees Lewis shake himself slightly and Eames blink awake, but she doesn't wait for them to sit up and see her. She's out the door, walking the streets of Lisbon and hoping the heat will bake the sour taste out of her mouth.

When she gets back to the hotel Eames is waiting for her. She drops her purse so she won't be tempted to throw it at him. The expression of naked regret on his face is new and cannot be trusted.

"I didn't realise," he says, and there's a crack in his voice as he says it. That would be hard to fake, she supposes. "Lewis has some vendetta against Felipe and I thought I was forging his wife for him. Not for their daughter." His face twists and he looks for a moment as if he's going to be sick.

"But you didn't back out when you saw who it was." Her voice sounds so cold and even that Ariadne is mildly surprised at herself. She's never been angry, truly angry, like this before.

"I couldn't, love." He sees her bristling at that and winces. "Blair would've slit my throat just for thinking it, and gutted you as well just for fun. Nasty piece of work, and that's not even considering Lewis and his penchant for sociopathic revenge quests."

Ariadne crosses to the kitchenette and pulls out the bottle of vodka they've been keeping in the freezer. "You're a thief and a liar, Eames. You could've gotten out of it. And you could be lying to me right now."

"That's true," he agrees. The bedsprings creak but the carpet makes no noise as he crosses the room, and suddenly he's leaning against the counter next to her. "But I'd hoped you'd thought well enough of me to know I'd never choose this sort of job. And that I'm not working with Lewis again. Neither will anyone else."

"Good." Ariadne downs a shot of vodka, hissing slightly at the burn, then looks at him as a new thought occurs to her. "You didn't kill him, did you?"

"Of course not. Too messy. But he's going to find that all of his assets have been suddenly donated to children's charities. And word gets around remarkably quickly." He takes the bottle out of her hand and pours himself a rather large measure in one of the water glasses. "We're a gossipy and unscrupulous bunch, but we do generally have our limits."

Generally. Slippery slope arguments are the worst sort of logic and would give her philosophy-teaching father fits, but Ariadne knows that the longer she stays here the more she will begin to apply terms like _generally_ and _mostly_ to the things she considers unacceptable. And that's not what she wants. She doesn't want to be the girl from a film noir with a gun in her purse. She doesn't want to feel that insidious slide towards moral relativism and a situation where she shrugs and grits her teeth and invades the mind of an innocent child.

"I can't do this anymore."

"We'll leave Lisbon tomorrow," he says, laying a hand over hers on the counter. She pulls it away, slow and deliberate.

"That's not what I meant."

When she goes, she leaves the gun in his suitcase.

 

**07 // always find my faults faster than you find your own**

 

It seems unbelievable that she could make it back to Paris in time for the fall semester to begin. But there she is, falling into the steps of her old routine. Up in the morning, shower with the pipes knocking about in the walls, grabbing a scarf and thundering down the stairs and apologizing to her downstairs neighbor, swinging around the corner and over the bridge, grabbing a _pain au chocolat_ and a coffee and pouring through the gates of the university with hundreds of other students and finally sliding into her seat like one of a row of flowers waiting for the gardener to come with his watering can. Visiting the market and buying yoghurt and carrots and cheese and bread and occasionally splurging on some really good sausage, drinking cheap wine and doing her laundry in the world's tiniest washing machine. It's like the past few months never happened. Not like they were a dream. Too cliched to even think about putting it that way.

Two weeks ago she was in Lisbon. Before that she was in London, and then before that she was zigzagging across the United States. This spring she was working with criminals to break the mind of an orphaned billlionaire. Nobody would believe her if she told them her work placement was more of a corporate-monopoly-breaking, international-law-flouting enterprise. Slowly she realizes how comfortable she's become with lying, with saying that nothing much happened over her summer, that she did some traveling and saw some old friends. And that's without even thinking about the dreams themselves. Of course going from building and remaking worlds to wrestling with AutoCAD and writing papers was going to be hard. That much was expected. But she hadn't realized just how frustrating it would be. Like trying to draw with her hands in potholders and a blindfold over her eyes, or the first time she'd come to France and could understand much more than she could speak and always worried that everyone was laughing at her.

And the part that had surprised her the most is being a student again. Not the work, but being a pupil, an empty vessel waiting to be filled with knowledge, the chatter of her classmates and professors sounding exactly alike. Professor Miles is the best of the lot, coming around to sit in front of his desk and leading his classes more like a shared discussion and discovery of knowledge. But when she's been challenging men old enough to be her father, coming up with contingency plans on the turn of a dime, teaching layouts to experts who look at her with admiration for her skill and intelligence - how could she ever have thought to go back to school?

 _There's nothing quite like it,_ Arthur had said. Now she's starting to think he didn't just mean the dreaming.

Miles looks less surprised than she feels when she finds herself standing in front of his desk, the late afternoon sunlight slanting through and making his desk glow richly under its coating of chalk dust. "So, you're leaving us," he says. It isn't a question.

"Leave of absence," she answers. Not permanently, she hopes. Someday her degree might come in handy.

"Of course, my dear. If you come back I'll buy you a drink and you can tell me all about it." He sees right through her, of course. For a moment she wants to ask him questions one after another - how many students has he lost to the dreaming? Why did he pick her and send her with Cobb? How selfish was he being? Does he know Cobb was seeing Mal in his dreams? What was Mal like, before she died? Does he think that all dreamers are fated to lose themselves in the dream, or just the women, or just the ones with dark curls, or does he think she'll escape that fate?

But she doesn't ask anything. She just nods and turns to go.

"Keep in touch, Ariadne," he says as she leaves.

Two weeks later she sends him a postcard from Prague with an upside-down cathedral inked on the back. She hopes he's proud.

**08 // til her voices are remembered and his secrets can be told**

 

Prague is like walking into someone else's dream, a city where the past and present collide like nowhere else she knows. London was stately, incorporating its improvements and billboards like a snowball becoming an avalanche. Los Angeles was painfully young. Paris chose to tuck its modernizations discreetly away and maintain the illusion of its former grace wherever possible, shunting the new and undesirable to the outer rim of the city. But Prague is like a child's recounting of a fairy tale, with their favorite cartoon superheroes appearing to escort Cinderella to the ball.

She's outside the Dancing House, standing on the sidewalk across the street and wondering whether it would be the most ridiculously touristy idea to sit down on the grass behind her and sketch it, when she sees a figure coming down the street like the world's tallest crow. Her first instinct is to run. But that would be foolish. Instead she stays put and digs in her bag - for pencils, her camera, anything - so she doesn't have to watch him approaching.

"Ariadne?" His voice is warmer and more familiar than it has any right to be. Especially considering that the last time he saw her she was walking away from him.

"What are you doing here?" she asks, squinting to see his face. His expression is as blank as a portrait, like maintaining a smile for hours would expend more effort than he cares to give.

"What else?" He's not holding a silver briefcase, but her heart leaps anyway. It's been weeks since she's been inside a dream with another person. Maybe she can convince him - but then he's speaking again. "I'd ask you the same thing, but it looks like you're playing tourist. School project?" There's a single drop of condescension in those two words that sets her teeth to grinding.

"Just traveling." Ariadne rocks back on her heels. "So. Are we going to stand around being awkward or are we going to go our separate ways?"

Arthur flashes an unexpected smile. "What about a third option?"

"You're always prepared for contingencies," she says, studying the pattern of his tie. It's a fine basket-weave of gold over a dark, dark red.

"How about we get coffee?"

"And act like we're pleased to see each other?" That one strikes home, and for a moment she thinks he's taken a step back. But no, he's as close as he was before, the swaying clearly her imagination mapping him onto the building behind him.

"Don't presume to know what I'm thinking, Ariadne," he says, voice even. They could be discussing the importance of wheat crops in relation to the design of citadels in pre-Renaissance Italy. And the use of that much control must mean she's really getting to him. And suddenly it seems so incredibly petty, flinging these words at him when it's been months and they're in a strange city and he's trying so hard to be nice. A damning word, _nice,_ but Arthur doesn't waste effort. She exhales, corners of her mouth turning up into a small and sheepish smile.

"Coffee would be great. My treat." An espresso isn't an apology, but it's a start. They walk to a café she'd seen earlier and liked. Arthur heads to a table in the back where he can see the exits, a touch of paranoia she's come to expect. He would call it preparedness. After a brief deliberation, she orders a _palačinky_ to go along with her coffee, and he shakes his head slightly.

"Whatever, they're delicious. You should try some."

"There's a crepes place in my neighborhood," he says, placing each word like a land mine. "I was planning to take you there."

She doesn't know what to say to that. Is there anything? They sit in silence until the waiter comes back with their drinks and her dessert, which she _really_ doesn't want to eat now. "Do you want me to apologize?" she asks finally, looking at the powdered sugar slowly dissolving into the surface of the thin pancake.

"You _left,_ " he says, and the thread of hurt in his words is as shocking as if he'd suddenly coughed up some blood into a handkerchief.

"I didn't - you didn't want me there." Fuck, she's not going to cry. She's over this, over the whole debacle that was Chicago.

"I spent years with nothing to call my own, Ariadne. And chasing after Cobb, and helping him with - after Mal, and then dropping everything to go when he needed me." She realizes how tired he is under his diligently maintained exterior, the dark green of his shirt making him look sallow and drained by contrast. "I had a life I wanted to get back to. And an apartment I hadn't been in for five months. I didn't want you to see that just yet."

"Like I care about a little dust --"

"I have a hard time getting close to people, all right?" He winces. Just admitting this is costing him something, almost causing him physical pain, and part of her just wants to crawl over the table and into his lap and pull his head onto her shoulder. But she's not that girl anymore.

"You're ridiculous. You know that, right?" Because deflecting is going to make the whole situation better, and insults will definitely help. It's true, though.

He grimaces, and then smiles ruefully. "I'm starting to realize this, yes."

"You could have told me all of that. Even just that you lived in the city." She takes a breath and lets it out slowly, picking up her coffee and putting it down without drinking it. "I don't expect you to tell me everything, but don't pull that shit again. And I won't run off without telling you. Deal?"

The moment of consideration stretches out longer than she'd like. This is possibly the weirdest relationship status talk she's ever had. If what they're doing can be called a relationship. Then he nods and gives her another one of those disarming smiles. "I think I can agree to those terms."

"So now what?"

He reaches across the table and puts his hand over hers, fingers closing around her wrist. She pulls her hand out and turns it so she's holding his hand, weaving her fingers between his till he's well and truly caught. "So now I'd like to buy you dinner. If you'll let me."

She lets him. And there's a bottle of wine, and she invites him up to her hotel room, laughing when he toes off his shoes just inside the door to match her pulling off her boots. They talk and she tells him about the Lisbon job - he nods and says he's heard about that one, that she was right to walk away. They carefully don't mention Eames. But Arthur tells her about his favorite parts of London, about going to the British Museum and being so awestruck by the Parthenon marbles that he had to sit down, and she tells him stories about being the only kid who dressed up as Artemis or Athena for Halloween with cardboard helmets and spears made of tree branches. It's possibly the most open she's ever seen him. Like seeing her anger made him want to expose himself. This doesn't get less confusing as she sobers up. It doesn't help her latent desire to familiarize herself again with what's under that crisp shirt. Neither does the hint of cologne she can still smell, curled up beside him on the tiny loveseat. An unfortunate word choice, she thinks, as his story slows and he realizes she's not really paying attention anymore. His mouth is slightly open. Leaning over to kiss him seems like the most obvious thing to do, really.

After a few glorious moments he pulls back, just enough to see her without his eyes crossing. "Are you -"

"Arthur, shut up," she says, settling her hand at the back of his neck. He's gone too long between haircuts, the ends of the strands brushing her knuckles. This doesn't have to mean anything.

Maybe he decides he's had enough of baring his soul and expressing his feelings for one night. He tilts his head back and lets her loosen his tie and pop the buttons of his shirt, tensing slightly when she scrapes her thumbnail down the center of his chest. He lets out a little breath when she kisses the spot right behind the sharp angle of his jaw before working her way down his neck. One of his hands tangles in her hair, the coils of her curls rolling between his fingers as she bites gently at his shoulder.

Time seems to move slowly as he helps pull her shirt over her head and then draws her back down for more kisses. Usually she wasn't very good at taking her time with him, but she slides into his lap and just lets herself remember how this goes with Arthur, the little things she does that he likes. The way she can roll her hips gently and his breath will catch in his throat, the feel of the hair that trails from his navel downwards and brushes against her knuckles when she undoes his belt buckle. How she can do all this without ever letting her mouth leave his for more than the space of a few breaths. Tonight he seems content to let her take the lead, though one of his hands slides up to cup her breast and roll the nipple between two fingers.

The yellow light from the lamp makes him look even more sallow once she gets his shirt off, so she stretches up and flicks the switch. His hands span her back as if she needs the help to keep her balance. Or maybe to keep her from pressing down too much on him. She brushes her thumb down the side of his face, tracing one of his dimples. "Come on."

"Don't say that," he manages, and she can see the gleam of his smile in the light through the curtains.

"We're not having sex on the couch," she says, and his hips jerk and she can't keep down a laugh. Kissing him again seems to placate him, though, and he lets her stand up and cross to the bed, shedding the rest of her clothes on the way. He joins her while she's rummaging in her backpack for the condoms she bought the other day, because she was feeling reckless and hopeful and testing her Czech. "Did you know that the Czech for condom is ' _kondom_ '?" she asks. His hand is a warm pressure against her back, like he can't bear to not be touching her.

"Actually, no." She turns and nearly hits him in the face with the foil strip, and he laughs. It's a sound she never heard enough of, will never hear enough of, and in pursuit of more she lunges and tackles him down to the mattress. The laughter dies down to a chuckle as she pins him, hips over his and hands pressing his arms into the duvet - and he's lost the rest of his clothes too, how convenient. Of course he could flip her easily, show her who's stronger. But he doesn't. His eyes are unfathomably dark in the half-light, further curtained as her hair falls down around his face. The sound of his breathing suddenly seems very loud. She drops the foil strip on the bed and shifts off him, lying next to him and stroking a hand down his side.

"Hey," he says, and she can tell he's about to gently reassure her that they don't have to do this, but that's not it at all, so she leans over and kisses him again. She wants to. She _really_ wants to, and that's part of the problem. It shouldn't be this easy. So she lets him kiss away her worries, lets the simple thrill of skin against skin stoke that slow fire inside, gradually works her fingers through his hair and musses it thoroughly. For his part, Arthur seems perfectly fine to make out with her like they're teenagers, or like they're exploring each other for the first time. His free hand sweeps up and down her side, slowly mapping the territory from breast to waist to hip and back, and eventually it migrates forward as she starts minutely rocking her hips towards his, until she's rocking into his hand and those deft fingers of his are working their way between her folds.

Ariadne hisses his name as he strokes her, one finger dipping inside and then spreading her open little by little, coming up to circle her clit every so often. This slow, methodical exploration is just short of torturous, gentle and insistent. When he presses two fingers inside she shudders hard, not quite a climax but close, and she gropes around in the sheets for the condom. Arthur pauses in his ministrations and mutters something she can't quite hear, though given the tone it sounds something like "thank God." Getting the packet open and the condom onto him is a joint effort, but her hand moves up and down his length quite without his help until he groans and grabs her wrist. She rolls onto her back and holds her breath as he pushes into her, familiar and new and she keeps her eyes open to watch his face, lips parted and wet like he can't quite believe this is happening again. Maybe that's why he rocks into her so slowly, trying to stretch it out as long as possible, and at one point he drops his head to her shoulder and she turns and kisses his cheek, his ear, making him huff out a laugh. When she takes his earlobe between her teeth he thrusts hard, twice, then again before he catches himself.

"Yes," she finds herself saying, and works her hand between them. A few swirls over her clit bring her closer; then he's speeding up, having reached the limit of his control, and the change in speed and the angle set her off, clenching around him and digging her fingers into his shoulders. The last thrust sends her sliding backwards a little before he collapses half on top of her. It's only as they lie there, both catching their breath, that she realizes they've ended up sideways on the bed. This seems incredibly funny to her and she lets out a noise that's as close to a laugh as she can manage right now.

"What," Arthur asks. Or she thinks he does.

"Move," she manages, pushing at his shoulder. When he pulls out she doesn't dwell on how cold she feels when he goes to dispose of the condom, just slowly slides over the duvet till she can worm her way under it and curl up on her side of the bed. She half expects Arthur to get up and start dressing. Instead he slides in behind her, pulling the covers up over their shoulders and wrapping his arm around her waist. Spooning is probably several degrees too tender for whatever the hell is going on between them, but right now Ariadne is too tired and comfortable to care. That must be why she laces her fingers with his as they rest over her stomach.

After that they must fall asleep pretty quickly, because the next thing she knows it's morning and Arthur is, astonishingly, still passed out. He's rolled over at some point during the night so she's able to get up without worming her way out of his grasp. After she pees and brushes her teeth she comes out of the bathroom and has to stop and look at him for a moment. Then she has to get her sketchbook, because even if watching him sleep is a little creepy she can't resist putting that image down on paper. His hair is stark against the pillows and his chest and shoulders look like something out of an anatomy textbook. She's so absorbed in drawing that her pencil skitters across the page when he pushes himself up suddenly.

"What?" he asks, peering at her as if surprised to see her awake before him.

"Nothing. I was drawing." She hastily erases the mark she made when she jumped.

"Drawing me?" The smile he gives her is positively goofy, and she's unaccountably pleased when he leans over to kiss her. "I'm flattered. What time is it?"

"A little past six. Don't get all egotistical, mister." Just for that, she smudges graphite on his cheek.

"I should get going," he says, turning away so he can get out of the bed.

"No mixing business with pleasure?" she asks, and he shakes his head.

"No, I'm supposed to meet the client for breakfast. And I need fresh clothes." He doesn't seem to mind picking up his clothes from the night before and getting dressed in front of her, though. "How long are you staying in Prague?"

"Only a few more days, probably," she says, leaning back.

"Any thoughts about what you'd like to do next?"

"Nope. Well, lots, but I don't even know if some of them exist." Which is true. Prague's just a waystation. Eventually she'll have to figure out what to do with her life. The money from the Fischer job won't last forever.

He nods. And doesn't offer advice, which she appreciates more than anything he could possibly tell her. "If you ever need a hand - a word in the right ear -" He takes a small case out of his jacket pocket and extracts a card, then fishes out a pen and scribbles on the back of it. "That number always works. I might take a while to answer, especially if I'm not in the States, but..." The shrug doesn't say as much as the slightly embarrassed expression he's wearing. "Don't give that out."

She resists the urge to roll her eyes. "I'm going to put it on the wall of every bathroom from here to Vancouver."

"For a boring time, call Arthur?"

"You were never boring," she says with a heat that surprises even herself. This is as good as a promise, better than jewelry or flowers: it's trust. She doesn't want to need him, but he cares if she does. That's something.


	2. Chapter 2

**09 // can someone help me i think that i'm lost here**

 

In the end, because she can't decide where else to go, Ariadne goes back home. Back to the States, at any rate, and back to Maine. She owes her parents that much, she thinks, even though they'll have questions about why she's sitting around being foolish when she should be writing essays and living in the studio. As it turns out, they don't have questions; they have silence. Her mother's is awkward and concerned, her father's is stony, but neither of them seem to know what to ask. Since Ariadne isn't volunteering any information either this puts them at an impasse. So she wakes up halfway through the second week and logs onto Facebook for the first time in months and messages a friend from undergrad who's living in Boston and asks if she wouldn't mind a houseguest. Em doesn't mind, of course, she's thrilled to hear from Ariadne and wants to hear all about Paris and architecture and has a big couch.

Being around a normal friend is surreal at this point. Emily has a job at a nonprofit and works long hours, getting up in the morning and putting on earrings and brewing coffee and straightening her hair and running out the door before seven-thirty, coming home late and pouring herself a glass of wine or opening a beer and collapsing in front of the TV. For Ariadne, who's been keeping a schedule that bears only the faintest resemblance to the diurnal cycle, it's confusing. She can't deny that it's soothing in a certain way, not having the bed perfectly made and waking up to the same ceiling every day. She starts cooking again, breaking out her parents' favorite Greek recipes and some things she taught herself in France, shopping in the afternoons and leaving the apartment redolent of onions and wine by the time Em gets home. It makes Ariadne feel a bit less of an imposition. But she's having the same problems that she did with her parents.

"So. Is it super awkward to ask why you left Paris?" Em asks. And how does she answer? Fumbling for words, something about being stressed and not being able to handle things - but that makes her sound like a coward. And that wasn't the case at all. How does she explain a transformative experience to someone who wouldn't even believe half of what she told them is possible? How do you tell them the one thing they always knew she was working towards now seems childish and ill-fitting like the snow boots she wore in second grade? It's architecture, not a silly humanities degree like Em calls her creative writing major.

"It was time for a change," she says. "I don't know if I can spend my whole life waiting for something I designed to maybe be chosen by a committee of planners to maybe be built when the funding comes through." Which is more or less true. So what if the revelation seems sudden? So be it. In the meantime, Ariadne explores Boston and lets herself sink into the welcome chill of a New England autumn.

On the train she sees an advertisement for a research study. These are all over the place - this particular ad is next to one that's offering yoga as a treatment for PTSD in war veterans - but this one catches her eye. _Are you having trouble sleeping? Do you have recurring nightmares about events in your past?_ It describes a study in therapy and use of "experimental technology". That sounds too familiar.

Ariadne looks up the website and finds that it's associated with a study run by someone at MIT. Digging a bit on the school's website turns up the Brain and Cognitive Sciences department, which sounds frightfully sterile compared to the flowery language of creation and inspiration and paradox that Cobb taught her. Making and unmaking landscapes doesn't seem to fit with this jargon-filled description of sleep labs and memory tasks and drug effects. But the picture of a woman with smooth dark hair and flashing eyes behind large glasses looks reassuringly academic. And really, what does she have to lose at this point? At worst, she'll be dismissed as a harmless crackpot. Advertising on subway cars must yield plenty of those sorts of responses.

She plucks up her courage and writes a long letter instead of the survey they ask potential research subjects to fill out. Explaining that she's had previous experience with shared dreaming, that she doesn't have her own PASIV but has used one multiple times, that she's had training in architecture and creating stable dreams within dreams. After some hesitation she decides not to mention Limbo. That can wait till she actually hears back and gets more than a polite refusal. But she tries to sound professional and sane and useful. It still feels like a long shot.

To her great surprise, she receives a reply only a few days later. Dr. Hwang asks a series of pointed questions, about how she first came in contact with the technology and how she understands it to work. Ariadne does her best to answer, but the fact is that she left all that up to Yusuf. She makes a mental note to contact him and beg for answers. In the meantime she waits for the next communication. Which turns out to be an invitation to come to Dr. Hwang's office and talk.

The building is all glass and steel from the outside and Ariadne thinks fleetingly of Penrose staircases as she heads inside. But these aren't projections, and most of the people aside from campus security ignore her entirely. She finds Dr. Hwang down more left turns than should be reasonably possible, and finds that set of glasses from the photograph shoved on top of the researcher's head as she peers at her monitor.

"Ariadne!" says Dr. Hwang when she looks up. The expression on her face isn't a smile. It's definitely intrigued. Ariadne moves a stack of files from the only other chair in the office to the top of a filing cabinet and sits down, holding onto the strap of her satchel. Surely the good doctor will decide she's a fraud and throw her out at any moment.

As it turns out, that's not what she's interested in. Dr. Hwang is more interested in where she went to school. "You studied under Professor Miles, yes?"

"Uh, yeah. Yes, he was my research mentor," Ariadne says. She's not sure if this is a trick.

"His work with structural cohesion in dreams was groundbreaking," Dr. Hwang says, nodding along. Ariadne doesn't bother to correct her about just what Miles teaches these days. "Really, bringing in design elements was what made the entire concept of multiple dreamers in one dream feasible. Otherwise you only have so many divergent schemata overlaid on each other that the dream collapses almost instantaneously. Which is disastrous for the subjects after a time."

"But dreams collapse anyway," Ariadne ventures.

"They do, but not without provocation. Internal or external stimuli," Dr. Hwang says. She tilts her head. "And you said you've maintained several simultaneous dream levels?"

"I designed them. I haven't been the primary dreamer."

"But that's the purpose of the architect. They imprint the structure upon the other dreamers. The only way that many layers could have been maintained is if you were present in each of them."

Ariadne feels as if a ghost has walked into the room and thrust cold hands into her innards. Was that why they didn't all wind up in limbo during the Fischer job? Just because she was too stubborn to let Cobb walk off without a fight? Three levels was experimental, everyone knew that, but she'd thought the others had at least tried it before. She swallows hard. "I guess. I clearly need to learn a lot more about this." And then the hard part. "I'd like to do that with your lab, if that's possible. I think I could be useful to you. More useful than some random person off the street, anyway."

"Well," says Dr. Hwang, finger to her lips as if keeping a secret. "It's rather unorthodox."

Ariadne wants to laugh. Everything she's done for the past year has been unorthodox. This is like going to church and singing in the choir by comparison.

In the end, they decide to call her an independent contractor, and Ariadne signs her name and writes out her social security number dozens of times on a stack of forms that feels like it's almost as tall as she is. The background check takes some time, but she feels confident enough that she finds an apartment and moves out of Em's living room and into a building packed with grad students from all over the world.

When she finally gets the chance to enter the labs at the Picower Institute, she almost starts laughing. Their PASIV isn't a PASIV at all. It isn't portable, for one thing; it's a great hulking machine clad in white curves that match the MRI machine in the room they passed on the way down. The sheer scale of it makes her think of the first computers, mainframes that would take up whole rooms with less processing power than her cell phone.

There are electrodes, cold gel against her forehead, and Ariadne lies back on the recliner that feels uncomfortably like a dentist's chair and tries not to freak out. Somehow this feels far more frightening than sitting on a stolen lawn chair and letting a strange man in a vest hook her up to an IV line in a dingy warehouse. But when the lab assistant hits the switch and she closes her eyes and opens them in Paris, it's exactly the same.

 

**10 // but why do i need you to love me if you don't hold what i hold dear**

 

For a time, she forgets about them. She texts Arthur to let him know she's found a job, _if you ever need anything._ Her offer is probably less materially useful than his, but she feels compelled to say so anyway. She doesn't hear back, but she does receive a postcard forwarded from her parents' house, an Escher print with his familiar angular slanting hand and no text other than a P.O. box address in Chicago. The postcard gets tacked up on the wall over her desk, the little figures marching up and down into infinity. At Thanksgiving she sends an envelope of pictures of the maple tree outside her apartment, going from yellow-green to red to bare branches against cloudy skies. A package arrives two days before Christmas at her parents' house, where the mood is much lighter now that she's got an actual job; a bottle of her perfume and an Hermès scarf wrapped around it. Her mother's eyebrows rise significantly and Ariadne goes to get another mug of cocoa. It's not as if she needs to pretend that this is a love token. Still, she keeps the scarf; it's a lovely shade of saffron and the color is welcome in the dark winter months. She sends back a tie bar that she finds at a vintage shop, the smooth metal engraved with a delicate pattern of interwoven lines.

Two weeks into January a box turns up at her door. The customs form is from England, and inside she finds a note scrawled on the back of a Chinese takeaway menu. _If you still want to take a shot at my balls the next time you see me, you should be properly shod._ The Doc Martens are classic, black leather polished to a dull gleam and formidable. Breaking them in will be a challenge. But as an apology, it goes a long way. She sends Eames an illustration of the Boston Tea Party and a box of maple candy in return. It's not quite an invitation, but she's opened the lines of communication. For now she's happy to be here with her work and can't be bothered to chase men around the globe. If they want her, they can come and find her.

 

**11 // jangle and circle and end**

 

Ariadne knew that she was limited before. All her dreaming had been work. For the job. She had to keep things realistic - a city, a bank vault, a hotel. Even the snowscape had to feel real, so Fischer could fill it with soldiers and Eames could blow it all up. All the possibilities had been tantalizing, Arthur's paradoxes and mazes and staircases only the merest taste of what she could do in a realm where physics was only a suggestion.

But this isn't work. This is play. They want to see what she can do, and she makes and unmakes things in an instant, mind racing ahead even faster than she can change the dream. Dr. Hwang is always there to observe, at least at first. She's trained herself to suppress her projections, meaning that the pair of them are always alone in Ariadne's dreams. The doctor doesn't bring a clipboard - it wouldn't do much good waking up without it, and she always sits up and immediately begins typing away on her laptop without pausing to remove the electrodes on her forehead - but her attitude is always skewed towards detached observance rather than participation. In some ways it reminds Ariadne of going under with Cobb that first time, the way he stayed a few steps behind and made comments and only let her see him being impressed in the mirror she created. Dr. Hwang is trying to discover what parts of Ariadne's brain are being used when she shifts a staircase or makes a bridge. Some days they do more simple tasks - build a bridge, take it down again. Build a wall, put a door in it.

But the best days are when they let her have free rein. A few times Ariadne loses Dr. Hwang in the worlds and only sees her again when they wake up. There was the time they were in a park, lush and verdant and filled with perfectly ordinary trees and benches and trash cans and a playground - except that it was all under ten feet of water. That time Dr. Hwang was kicked out much sooner.

"Did you dream yourself a scuba tank?" Ariadne asked.

"I thought I'd know how to use it," the researcher said, and just like that her disgruntled expression melted into a laugh.

The next time Ariadne avoids water; Dr. Hwang was curious about the gravity effects and inner ear function. It's almost impossible to not tell her about Arthur and his exploits when the first-level kick failed; instead, Ariadne tells her changing the plane works but suspending it entirely is harder. Or she thinks it is, anyway. They're walking through a quiet field when they come upon a very large and very abandoned suitcase. Dr. Hwang moves to open it, then draws back.

"Go ahead," Ariadne tells her.

"I'm just here to observe." But her eyes dart back to the case.

"You're already changing things by being here." Ariadne puts her hands in her pockets, smiling when the suitcase opens to reveal a staircase.

"A portable Narnia?" Dr. Hwang has a smile on her face that could almost be described as goofy.

"Something like that," Ariadne answers, stepping in. The darkness obscures the clues, but there's that definite stomach-lurching swing as the stairs _down_ transition to stairs _up_. But she isn't finished yet; the doorknob is a soft white glow ahead of them. When the door opens they are looking up into the sky, and the ground is another hundred and eighty degrees from vertical. "You have to sort of swing up," she says, gripping the doorjamb and pushing herself through that rotation and up onto a cobblestoned street. Dr. Hwang follows, staggering a bit and almost falling.

"How do you manage it?" she asks. Ariadne shrugs, walking down the street. The buildings fall away and the street widens until they're standing on a rocky shore, waves whipped by a cold winter breeze.

"I just do it. You're the one who's supposed to figure out how it works." It's a flippant answer, but she really can't explain it - it's like asking how she comes up with ideas for buildings. These things just come to her, and while she might refine the skill and the technique she can't explain the flow of inspiration. Ahead of them, the waves slow to a sluggish crawl and then pause, hardening into a frozen whorl. The salt-rimed sand crackles with fragile ice under their feet. Is she doing this on purpose, or is it irritation with the questions? She isn't sure. But she keeps walking forward to see if the ice will hold.

 

**12 // "love is touching souls," surely you touched mine**

 

It's the end of February when Eames turns up, waiting outside the building like he does it every day. Ariadne doesn't find this as creepy as she probably should; it's Eames, and he breaks rules of etiquette as easily as international law. Anyway, it's not like her place of employment is a great secret. And even if it was, he'd still be able to figure it out.

He gives her a broad, bright smile that lights up his face despite the darkness of the early evening. "Hello, Ariadne."

"Hi. Should I ask what you're doing here, or will knowing only get me in trouble?" she asks, adjusting her scarf. It's a cold day, winter still clutching the city in its bitter claws; the loops around her neck are woolen and bright blue rather than a patterned square of silk. His smile shifts slightly, and he shrugs, posture still easy.

"I can't have come just to see you? I'm hurt." He laughs when she rolls her eyes.

"When have your motives ever been that pure?" But she doesn't walk past him when she comes to his level on the sidewalk. Maybe she's just too tired from a long day of testing; they were examining the teaching of levels and how much information was transferred to the observers or subjects from the dreamers, how much could get carried forward to the next dream if the original dreamer was removed rather than remaining as a passive observer. Ariadne spent hours in dream-time as well as in reality writing out her experiences and being interviewed by Dr. Hwang's trio of grad students. Eames holds out his arm in a courtly gesture that would normally make her laugh. Instead she takes it and lets him start walking.

"You have no idea where you're going, do you?" she asks, after a few minutes. Eames grins but doesn't look down at her, tucking her gloved hand more firmly in the crook of his elbow.

"Why do you say that, pet?"

"Because you're heading towards the river. And not towards, like, a restaurant. Or a T stop."

"Is that what you call the Tube? No wonder we let you secede, you're all a lot of bloody madmen."

She laughs and steers him around towards Kendall Square, where they can at least find a cup of coffee - or tea. No, it didn't all end up in the harbor, though if Eames keeps making smart remarks she might be tempted to pitch him in, she says, kicking him gently under the table. He glances down and smirks.

"I suppose I should be pleased you're putting them to the purpose for which they're intended," he says, nodding at her boots. Ariadne looks down at the Docs and fights a blush.

"They have good traction." Which is not entirely true. She just likes them, clunky and solid and making her feel like nobody will get in her way. That probably signifies more than she's willing to think about while she's drinking a latte out of a giant yellow mug. Eames keeps on smirking. "Shut up."

"But you liked them," he says.

"Don't push your luck." She steals a piece of his pound cake, popping it into her mouth. "So how long are you in the city for?"

"Dunno. A week at least." He retaliates and breaks a corner off her brownie, making a face when he tastes it. Too sweet for his liking, maybe.

"Well. If you're still around this weekend, maybe I'll cook you dinner." Instantly she regrets saying it, because his whole face lights up in one of the silliest and - it feels funny to think it, but one of the realest smiles she's seen on his face. Like he's genuinely pleased at the thought.

"I shall endeavor to be, my dear," he says, finishing his tea and standing up. He swings his coat on again, nearly hitting the person behind him and either utterly unaware or not giving a shit whether he does or not. "Till then, petal." He stoops and kisses her hair and sweeps out, leaving Ariadne sitting alone and unsure whether to laugh or put her head in her hands.

Three days later, as she's pushing a sweaty lock of hair out of her face and trying to wrestle a heavy cast-iron pot full of beef and onions and wine into the oven, she's equally unsure as to whether this was a good idea. Trying to impress him was clearly unnecessary. This was Eames, after all, and he'd regaled her with stories of eating bugs in order to win bets. And she's misjudged the timetable so badly that they're not going to start eating till ten at the earliest. But when he walks in the door and stops short, sniffing the air like a very large bloodhound, it's worth it. So is the look on his face when he actually tastes the dish. It occurs to Ariadne that this is the sort of pathetically typical female activity her mother would deplore as beneath an educated and liberated woman. On the other hand, Ariadne is also eating the boeuf Bourguignon and enjoying it immensely. So there's that.

"So," Eames begins, pouring the last of the wine he brought into her glass much, much later.. "What exactly are you up to in the hallowed halls of the ivory tower? Other than buying art supplies," he adds, nodding at the colored pencil drawings she's started tacking to the walls.

"Research," she says promptly, sipping the wine as if she's not going to elaborate further.

He raises one eyebrow and just looks at her. "That's it? Keeping secrets from me? Don't you trust me? I'm insulted."

"No, you're not," she retorts, grinning. "You're the one who likes to proclaim what a terrible con man he is. How am I supposed to know you won't go selling my secrets to the highest bidder?"

"I wouldn't do that to you," he says. He seems genuinely affronted.

"Promise?" she says, flippantly. He meets her eyes and doesn't look away, still sober and serious.

"I wouldn't," he repeats, putting his hand over hers on the wobbly table for a moment. And for some reason that convinces her. He's so rarely serious that it strikes a chord. Ariadne tosses back the rest of her wine and starts telling him about what they're doing in the barest outlines, the attempts to figure out what this technology actually does and why it all works. The pursuit of knowledge and understanding. Luckily she hasn't been involved in the drug trials, though she knows that some luckless chemistry grad students have been formulating different cocktails to see if they can further enhance the dreaming. He smiles at that, and she knows he's thinking of Yusuf. After a while they move to the couch and she spreads out her portfolio of sketches, hands gesturing through the air to try and explain the physics in the three-dimensional space. He listens and asks questions and doesn't seem irritated when she refuses to tell him about Dr. Hwang and just what her goals are, focusing instead on the buildings and the dreams themselves.

When she looks up at the clock, it's well past two. Eames follows her gaze and groans, standing up. "And I suppose that atrocious excuse for a transit system is no longer running, is it? Would you be a dear and call me a cab?"

"You could stay here," she says, not quite believing she's said it even as the words leave her mouth. He gives her a smile that's sadder than she would have expected.

"Is that really a good idea?" he asks gently. She rolls her eyes.

"You can sleep on the couch if you care that much. But you can stay, if you want."

It's only slightly awkward, considering that they more or less lived together for a month. But she can't deny how nice it feels to have his warm, solid bulk behind her, curled up in her too-small bed. Just before she falls asleep his arm steals over her side, and she doesn't move it away.

In the morning she wakes up and stretches slowly, feeling last night's wine buzzing through her head like a swarm of angry bees. She hears Eames talking on the phone and can't resist listening in. It's a tiny apartment. Eavesdropping is almost unavoidable.

"No, I think she's doing remarkably well, actually," he says. When she tiptoes to the door she can see him leaning into the kitchen window, looking outside and tapping an unlit cigarette against the sill. "I don't know that I like her being a guinea pig for these people. But she seems to be enjoying it." He pauses to listen, then nods. "No, you're right. She's thriving, though. I think our Ariadne is going to go much further than anyone else expected." Another pause and a laugh. "Of course, darling. I don't mean to minimize your foresight and perspicacity."

She pads into the kitchen and he raises his eyebrows, nodding. "Listen, I've got to go. Talk with you later, all right?" he says, and adds "Of course. You too."

"Did Arthur send you here to check up on me?" she asks, leaning against the counter. He brushes a curl out of her face, fingers lingering on her cheek.

"Of course not. He knows you can take care of yourself."

"So why were you talking about me?"

"Because I'm standing in your kitchen, dearheart."

But she can't get that conversation out of her head afterwards. Not so much that they were talking about her, but that they were talking at all. And Eames sounded positively affectionate. There's a history there, it's obvious, but she can't quite grasp the contours.

Eames is still in the city the next weekend, and she's been thinking about this long enough that she can't pass up the opportunity.

"That is a lovely scrap," he says, tweaking her scarf so it folds more prettily around her throat.

"It was a present from Arthur," she says, watching his face closely. If she sees a flicker there, either she's imagining it or he meant her to see it.

"His taste is impeccable," he says, in tones so dry they seem to make the air crackle. "Predictable, but impeccable."

"I don't get it," she snaps. "What is the deal with you two? Because half the time I think you actually can't stand him, and half the time I think you're in the second act of a romantic comedy."

He looks as though he's bitten into something sour. "That's far more accurate than you might think, love," he says finally, shoulders falling. She stares at him for a moment. If he's telling the truth, it might be the most honest thing he's ever said to her.

"So what is it? Did you guys... end things badly?" It sounds childish and naive to her ears, but she can't think how else to put it. He shifts her scarf again, then brushes the back of his hand down the outside of her arm.

"The tale is much longer and more sordid than that, Ariadne," he says after a moment, not looking at her. "But one could put it that way and be right."

"Am I ever going to hear about that?"

He shakes his head, but not as a denial. "It's a very long story, sweetheart, and it involves a dishonorable discharge, gambling absurd sums of money, and quite a lot of guns."

She tries a smile. "It sounds like a spy movie. But then, given that you apparently want to live inside an Ian Fleming novel..."

He gives her one of those calculated smiles, a little more crooked than usual. "I'm flattered."

Ariadne watches him carefully for a moment. It's still impossible to tell whether the wrong word will make him close up and run away. So she stands up to pour them each another glass of wine, then comes back and tucks herself into his side. This feels entirely too comfortable and natural. "I'm just trying to understand," she says. And it's the truth. "To know what I'm getting myself into."

Eames lets out a breath that might be a laugh if it weren't so tired. "Too late for that, sweetheart." His blunt fingers lift the hair away from her neck and settle on her shoulder. When he starts to talk, he's looking straight ahead.

"I met Arthur for the first time in Virginia. It felt like another planet, not just another country, and I don't know how many times I almost killed myself trying to drive those bloody jeeps..."

He talks for ages, a natural storyteller. She's not sure if he's ever told her this many truths at one time. Of course, it could all be lies, but he knows she'd just go cross-check his story with Arthur. Somewhere in there she learns his first name, that his parents haven't spoken to him in years, that he has a flat in the building where Yusuf has his shop even though Eames is deeply allergic to cats, and a whole host of other things she never thought he'd tell her. But more importantly, she gets the history of him and Arthur - and it is _and_ , that energy between them definitely not a trick of her imagination. He tells her about the feel of Arthur's buzz cut under his palm when he first crowded him into a storage room and kissed him, the way it took Arthur forever to stop snapping at him and relax, a legacy of interaction that makes several things more understandable in hindsight. About meeting the Cobbs and loving Mal like a sister, a woman he remembers as a filthy laugh and straightforward talk and dreams like lush tapestries, seeing Arthur drawn into them like a surrogate brother or son. About drifting in and out of their lives together after the dreamshare project was disbanded, like a comet on a long trajectory that passed just close enough to Arthur to make him shiver and sigh. About Mal dying and Cobb going on the run and Arthur following, and not knowing what to do or how to stop them. Seeing them on jobs and between them in the small community of extractors, coming together and breaking apart with Arthur and trying not to lose his heart completely in the process. When Eames finally slows and stops, his story's reached the last job they worked together before - well, before the Fischer job, and before she met both of them, and she has the alarming sensation once again of stepping into water and feeling the bottom drop away. But Ariadne's always been a strong swimmer. She pulls Eames over and somehow he ends up lying with his head in her lap. Probably his wretched pomade is going to stain her trousers. He can make it up to her later.

"Have you ever told this to anybody else?" she asks, fingers scratching lightly against the side of his neck.

He doesn't look up. "Nobody else needed to know, love."

 

**13 // you have her face and her eyes but you are not her**

 

The week after Eames leaves, Dr. Hwang decides she wants to test projections. To see whether they can be held in check, to measure the rate of change before they notice the dream and hunt down the dreamer, a whole number of other things.

To Ariadne, in practical terms, this means a week full of dying. Experimenting with this is easier than trying to decide what she's going to do with everything Eames told her. Whenever she can, she throws herself off the edge of something high. Gaping chasms tend to open up in the street, buildings shoot up hundreds of stories high to let her have enough room to fall. She never hits the ground, just falls awake in her chair in the lab. Sometimes there isn't enough room or enough time and she has to resort to other measures. Guns feel too heavy in her hand, asleep or awake. Slashing her throat is so messy that Dr. Hwang begs her to never do it again. It's one of the few times the other woman appears truly distraught. So Ariadne keeps experimenting. Cyanide pills that work instantly - it might take longer in reality, but in the dream her subconscious believes she should be dead as soon as she bites down. And it makes her feel like she's in a movie, which she tells Eames when he calls her from Buenos Aires. He laughs in that particular full-throated way that makes her picture him with his head thrown back. He asks if he can start calling her Moneypenny. Absolutely not, she says.

To Arthur, she sends an email, fingers hovering over the keys: _How do you get used to dying? How do you keep track of reality? Trust that your totem is telling you the truth?_ His reply is waiting for her the next night when she gets home and starts up her laptop as she unpacks her dinner of pad see euw and spring rolls. _Don't get used to dying. Don't question reality too often. That way lies madness, as they say. Maybe you should take a few days off._ The idea of Arthur counseling anybody else to stop working so hard makes her smile. Then she scolds herself for sighing over her computer like some swoony teenager. She has to be sensible about these things. Be a grown-up. Is any one fantasy better or worse than another when it's being substituted for reality?

She's strolling through a stone arch suspended over a forested gorge with Dr. Hwang when she hears footsteps behind them. They're just normal, no rushing or running, but Ariadne still turns to look and gauge the threat. The stones under their feet let out a low hum.

It's Mal. And Ariadne is the dreamer. Did she bring the shade here? Is she going to be shot, stabbed, thrown to her death? Has inception left her mind infected too?

"Ah," Dr. Hwang says, a note of sadness as resonant in her voice as the strange vibration in the stones under their feet. Another projection appears, a short man with a funny cowlick, and then a third and fourth. "Did you know Mrs. Cobb?"

"No, not personally," Ariadne manages. The projection approaches along with the others, but none of them are showing more than a cursory interest in her. This Mal doesn't have eyes burning like embers, no glittering knife in her hands or mouth twisted with rage fuelled by guilt. "I saw... someone else's projection of her. After she died."

"Oh, of course, you'd have been too young to know her when she was still working." Dr. Hwang draws Ariadne to the side of the archway, letting the projections pass. "She was very talented, very ambitious. It was a loss to the field when she left to start a family - and then, well." The projection of Mal glances at them and gives the researcher a smile, and Ariadne can see why Arthur had called her lovely. This is a remembrance of friendship and warmth, not a carapace for guilt and regret.

That evening Ariadne stands in her favorite bookstore in front of the rack of cards, drawing one out with a view of the Charles River filled with sailboats. She tries to think what she would write, if she sent this card to Cobb: _I saw Mal again today, the way she really was. I can see why you loved her. I hope you're happy now without her in your head. I wonder if your daughter will look like her and whether you'll hate her for it. I don't know if you want to hear from me or if I remind you of the pain you had to go through to free yourself._

She puts the card back in the rack and leaves the store. The first spring breezes rush past her face as she walks into the night.

 

**14 // reach high doesn't mean she's holy just means she's got a cellular handy**

 

Time slips away from her sometimes. Spring is usually so fleeting in New England, a few days or a week between cold gray slush and the pressing heat of summer, but spending her time under sedation and hours elapsing in minutes means she has longer and longer stretches of sweet afternoons in the lengthening sunlight. Dr. Hwang monitors their time closely and tries to keep her from spending too long inside dreams. But Ariadne wants to keep going. She's feeling lately like there's something barely evading her grasp. This is a stepping stone to something. She just hasn't figured it out yet.

Even though it drives the researchers nuts, Ariadne keeps experimenting while she's under, doing things they don't expect her to. She learns how to control the weather, for one thing. The dreamer's bodily responses can still affect things, and a dream that's meant to have a particular setting will retain it - she knew as much from the Fischer job, and it's entertaining to see how the skies will become overcast and the air chill when the temperature in the lab is dropped. Still, she surprises the hell out of Dr. Hwang when she focuses and makes it start pouring. Then Ariadne brings the sun out and rainbows appear, reflecting off every surface and filling the air with color.

That's nothing, though, compared to the animals. At first she tries making them part of the scenery, but they don't move quite right. Like animation with missing frames, they jerk back and forth in loops that aren't convincing at all. Lizzie, one of the postdocs has nightmares afterwards with broken clockwork dogs chasing her, and Ariadne has to apologize profusely. What works better is leaving parts of the dream that _suggest_ animals and letting the subject fill them in. Smudges of darkness against the sky become a flock of sparrows, a brown shape atop a wall becomes a cat on the prowl. She's delighted when a yellow blur becomes a golden retriever that bounds over and noses at her hands, as realistic as she could possibly hope for.

Dr. Hwang rarely lets her build more than one level, partly because it's not related to the research she's doing and partly because she feels it's too dangerous. Which Ariadne can't really deny; she tells the researcher some of what she saw inside Cobb's head and is pretty sure that the conversation gives Dr. Hwang several gray hairs. She leaves out the names and details, but she's pretty sure it's obvious who she's talking about since the researcher knew Mal and what happened to her. But Dr. Hwang is good about not asking too many questions, not prying into what exactly the Fischer job was or what it entailed. She has a number of theories to offer on Limbo, though, when Ariadne brings it up - or what she calls the "shared substrate."

"You mean it's not just there?" Ariadne asks, as they're sitting in the lab. She's writing up a report for once, catching up on her homework like she's back in school.

"Existing independently? No," Dr. Hwang says, still peering over her glasses at the monitor. The students and postdocs have a pool going on when she'll finally give up and get bifocals. "It's created whenever you have a shared group. We - or you, rather, the architects - construct the level to give us a framework to dream on, but that needs a foundation to hold it up. That's the function of the shared substrate."

"So if you fall in a dream where it's just you, then... where would you go?" Like it's a purely academic question. Like she's not thinking of skyscrapers crumbling into onrushing waves. She pretends not to see Dr. Hwang look over at her, bending over the notebook where she's adding thumbnail sketches of the design. Today it was an open-plan maze built out of a forest.

"Your own subconscious, I should think," she answers. "I have some theories but I'm not ready to test them. Especially since I doubt I would be able to get IRB approval. A pity." Ariadne thinks that's a joke. Possibly.

One day in April Dr. Hwang sends her under with Evan, one of the postdocs working on the project. He's the dreamer on this run and Ariadne is thoroughly surprised when she opens her eyes to a village of treehouses. It's clearly her own work, like the bastard offspring of Endor and Escher with neat wooden staircases rather than rope ladders and tile roofs of all colors on the houses themselves. But she'd only ever been here with Dr. Hwang.

"How do you know this layout?" she asks, walking to the balcony's edge and leaning over, the banister rough with bark under her palms. Even the ground looks right, lightly furred with moss beneath the stately trees supporting her creations. Or are they Evan's now?

"Would you say this is accurate?" Evan asks instead, hanging back. The scents of rich earth and green leaves and something sweetly fragrant fill each breath she takes.

"Yes," she says. It's moderately mystifying. "I didn't think she'd have been able to get this level of detail transmitted."

Evan's voice behind her is clipped, his usual affability dampened by something else. "Let's see the rest before you make your final decision." 

The rest of the dream is exactly as she'd shown it to Dr. Hwang, and Ariadne would think she was filling it in if she wasn't also seeing her projections. Arthur is perched in a tree and grins at her when she smothers a laugh; her parents are walking along a staircase, and her third-grade teacher swings past on a zipline. The levels she'd structured out of Legos - because foamcore does a terrible job of mocking up trees - are all here, just like they're supposed to be. The birdsong is even there, and it's the only thing that's different; a four-note falling song instead of a rise and fall in a trill.

When she wakes up, Evan and Dr. Hwang are both grinning at her.

"What?" she asks, suspicious. Is this real? Her fingers are stealing towards her totem when Dr. Hwang speaks.

"So the dream. It was accurate to what you showed to me?"

"Yes. But I don't - did Evan drop in last time?" Ariadne struggles to sit up properly in the stupid reclining chair.

"No. We mapped the dream to a hard drive." Evan pushes the little wheeled table closer and shows Ariadne the added structure that's below the main part of the PASIV with the vials and IV lines. She'd never noticed it - but then, she never really focused on the machine.

"You can do that?"

The explanation is somewhat beyond her - it has to do with the brainwaves being captured in a high-density three-dimensional archive and encoding them with a special translation program - but the upshot is: yes, they can do that. And Ariadne feels one more stepping stone rise out of the water, the path through the maze just a little bit clearer. She still hasn't figured out what she wants to do. But now she has thoughts that might lead to an idea if she leaves them be, just for a while.

 

**15 // so are you with me or not you say this time decide**

 

Arthur sends her a postcard from Bilbao of the Guggenheim, its ungainly curves barely contained by the four square borders. On the back is a date and a flight number and a single phrase: _I'd like to see you._ It's a few weeks after her birthday, and she doesn't entertain any thoughts of it having to do with that. Maybe she should worry; for a moment she entertains dramatic thoughts of confessions, diagnoses of terminal illnesses. But her life isn't that cinematic. Besides, she thinks ruefully, Arthur is still cagey enough that he might not even tell her if that were true. The letters and emails would just stop coming.

Ariadne picks up a Zipcar and heads out to Logan, waiting in arrivals. He clearly isn't expecting her to be there when he walks through, that same bag slung over his shoulders. But his gaze settles on her and his face relaxes from its usual sharp focus. Miraculously, he smiles. Maybe because she's wearing his scarf.

"I didn't expect you to meet me here," he says when he's standing in front of her. How he looks so damnably fresh after a plane ride she has never figured out. Even though he's dressed casually for travel in jeans and a button-down under a light jacket, he still doesn't look crumpled and sweaty like the people flowing past him and through the automatic doors.

"The silver line's a pain in the ass," she answers with a shrug, then relents and smiles. "It's good to see you." As if that was permission, he bends down and kisses her tentatively. A familiar flush rises in her cheeks.

"It's good to see you too, Ariadne," he answers, pulling away.

"Do you have a hotel I'm taking you to, or do you want to stay with me?" She wasn't going to offer, but the look of surprise on his face is more than worth it.

"I wasn't expecting to," Arthur says finally. "And I don't want to intrude."

"Good, because I don't even have an iron." That makes him laugh, and she grabs a bag and takes his free hand and leads him out of the airport into the warm May afternoon.

He does come by later, though, after he's had what he tells her he desperately needed: a shower and a thirty-minute nap. She teases him gently for that, while she's making a giant bowl of salad. Point men shouldn't take naps, it sounds terribly undignified. But he just smiles good-naturedly and slices cucumbers and slides past her in the tiny kitchen to pull the loaf of bread out of the oven where it's been reheating. "Power naps are highly efficient," he tells her, eyes crinkling at the corners when she scoffs.

Later they're curled up on her couch with the rest of the wine when he pulls a leather-bound journal out of his bag and hands it to her. The edges of the pages are marbled in red and gold, the paper heavy and creamy, and the cover is held shut by long ties.

"This is gorgeous," she says, running her fingers lightly over the blank pages full of possibility.

"I was in Florence. You'd like it there, I think," he says, letting his happiness show on his face. And it all feels so normal that she reaches for her totem, even though Arthur is watching her intently, his good humor fading. Because normal for them isn't what she's come to expect. This checks out as reality and she turns to face him, moving the journal to the coffee table.

"Sorry. I just..."

"Can't believe it's real?"

She smiles wryly, she hopes. "Come on, Arthur. When have we ever done anything this domestic?"

"Hey, I thought you liked this, being all settled down." He reaches for her and she shrugs it off, tapping her fingers against his forearm.

"I do like it. But the last time I saw you we were in Prague and you were busy being a jet-setting criminal mastermind."

"And that's what you want?"

"I don't know what I want," she says frankly. "I don't want that life for myself but I don't want you pretending to be something you're not, either."

"Which is what? Considerate?" For that, she punches him lightly in the arm.

"No, just - I don't know. Is this what I would've seen if I'd stayed in Chicago?"

The question makes him pause, leaning back into the couch cushions. "Maybe. Yes," he says eventually. "Some of it. But I don't have to be professional around you." She can hear what he's not saying: that he can relax. That he feels safe here. And that measure of trust means more than almost anything else he could have said.

"So this is Arthur being unprofessional."

He glances over and catches her eye and that spark is back. "Do you want to see how unprofessional I can be?" She's laughing and protesting that that was a terrible line even as she's pulling him down to meet her.

Later they've made it to the bed, and they're lying quietly and talking a bit about what they've been doing since the last time they saw each other, and Arthur mentions seeing Eames on a job. Her next question is impossible to avoid. It's been bothering her for long enough that she doesn't even try to hold it back.

"When Eames was here -"

He pulls away, brows down like storm shutters. "Yes?"

"Oh, god, don't look at me like that. I'm not breaking up with you."

Arthur laughs, a short bark that startles her. After the evening's conversational turns she can hardly blame him.

"No, I just... is he using me to get at you? I don't think he is, but I can't tell with him sometimes."

He traces the line of her face, running his thumb down over her cheek to brush lightly over her bottom lip. "I don't think he is either. And I know him - not better, but longer, at least." She nips at his thumb and his thoughtful expression changes to a grin.

"What about you? Are you using me to get at him?" It hadn't even entered her mind before, but it seems only fair to ask. The look he gives her is almost a glare, as if he's insulted she would even think such a thing.

"I'm here because I want to be, Ariadne. What you and Eames do is your own business and none of my concern." His fingers skim lightly over her neck as he leans in, a whisper that's almost a kiss. "Unless you want it to be." And she knows he hears her breath catch, so she turns onto her other side to spoon back against him and give herself a moment to think. Also a moment to consider the myriad questions that are now swirling through her mind. Arthur wouldn't push her into anything, she knows that, but - is this his idea entirely or has he been talking to Eames? Is it something she's even interested in? Not just both of them individually, but together, as something more than just bouncing between two poles? The curl of heat in her belly answers that question for her. And the images that fill her dreams are impossible to ignore.

Eventually Arthur reveals that he wasn't actually in Boston for business. Instead it was a stop specifically to see her. Which is flattering, a little romantic but also mildly irritating. If he'd told her beforehand she would've taken some time off and shown him the sights, such as they are. He smirks when she tells him this and pulls her close. "If we were out sightseeing I'd have less time for this," he says, before demonstrating some techniques that would probably get them arrested. She ends up giving him her spare key. And it's been nice to come home to dinner or meet him at a restaurant she never would've stepped into otherwise. But inevitably he has to leave again, though he seems extremely reluctant to do so. She doesn't say anything about him staying longer; that would feel like imposing on him, and even if she wants him to stay and he wants to stay with her she can't quite get the words out.

It seems only fair to drive him out to the airport again, in a dinky car with a hideous green logo on each door, and she pulls up to the curb at departures and pulls him over the shifter for a long kiss, like she's trying to memorize him. He stares at her afterwards, lips parted before they rearrange into a smile, and he's getting his things out of the car and slamming the doors when she rolls the window down.

"Hey, Arthur?"

"Yes?" he asks, stooping slightly to look in.

"I love you. Have a safe trip," she adds, as if her cheeks weren't suddenly flaming, as if he hasn't just stumbled back from the window looking poleaxed, and she throws the car into drive and pulls away from the curb.

Her phone buzzes away in the cupholder, but it isn't till she's dropped the car off and berated herself thoroughly for saying anything that she checks her messages.

_That wasn't fair. Don't leave next time without giving me a chance to reciprocate._

The flame of happiness in her heart refuses to fade.

 

**16 // there's a sea secret in me it's plain to see it is rising**

 

The breezes flow like water around her as she walks through the nave. The air is crisp and cool with early autumn's first breath of frost and the beating of leaves, of wings. Over her head there is a pulse, a flutter, a swift movement as a flock takes flight, and she wants to join them and she could, but now isn't the time. The columns on the side of the cathedral grow up and into the air and sprout branches and bark and leaves and the canopy overhead filters down cool patterns of gold and red-gold and iron and at the end of the day they're all just minerals, aren't they? The wind stirs the branches and the patterns of light and dark on the floor shift and change better than any real windows could hope to be. Ahead a hawk swoops from its perch and comes up with a hymnal clutched between its talons.

There is no chorus and no organ but the air is still filled with music, stately tones, misremembered Mozart that colors the light like the leaves overhead. It's beautiful. And she knows without looking that her face is glowing just a little, from the cold, from the happiness within her. But she mustn't let this show on her face, none of it, just a calm mask like Arthur's, a quicksilver glass like Eames, because she can't arouse any suspicions. She's just another face in the crowd. Perhaps if she'd learned to forge - but that's entirely outside her skill set. Ariadne has always known who she is at the core of herself and she has always been terrible about pretending she is anything else.

Behind the altar is a glass case and she reaches in, the panels sliding apart, and she pulls out a reliquary and carries it with her. The bones of saints. She didn't put them there. Maybe that was Evan, or Lizzie, or maybe just the dream itself is filling in and changing when they're not here. Where there should be a crucifix there's just a curtain hanging from two enormous branches, the dark rust-red of late autumn leaves and dried blood, and she ducks under it and holds out the reliquary and sets it in a niche in the stone, in the wood. It clicks into place and the stone slabs of the floor drop away obligingly into steps that disappear into the darkness and

Hallways open up before her, inverted mirrors of the cathedral above, eldritch symbols scratched into the walls. Elves or dwarves? She could never remember. There are echoes of voices though no one has spoken and she can see though there are no torches, no lights. Every so often a patch of glowing crystals appears in the ground and they seem to hum faintly with different tones. Blue is the deepest, red the highest, thrumming gently and making her eardrums waver.

The tunnels don't give the feeling of being carved; they have no packed earthen floor or stone-reinforced walls, just crevices between rocks and fissures deep in the earth, and it's somewhat hard going. But she keeps on, careful not to twist an ankle because it will hurt just as much one level up, and she feels her bare feet mold to the curves of the stones and they never get cut because this is her dream and getting hurt is not in the rules of the game. The path leads inexorably downwards and it feels cooler and colder and if she weren't in a dream Ariadne would be indignant about the concept of frostbite. The tiny path she's forcing herself through, bruised muscles and all, is slowly widening till she can stretch her arms out fully for balance, and abruptly everything drops away and Ariadne is standing at the top of an amphitheater. She's told nobody about this. It could go with the cathedral above or it could be its own place, but according to the logic of dreams it has to be here. The history underlying the present moment. This is private but it's also meant to be shared.

At the bottom of the amphitheatre is a pool, black and shimmering and drawing in all the light in the room, and it's not water, it's a mirror. A plate for sacrifices to be offered up to something that is nasty and goes bump in the night and demands blood for its gaping maw. But when she sets her hand to the mirror it ripples and she pushes through, with resistance, then slipping through and through and down and

the caves are full of blue light, shivering in waves under the water that's filling the space between spaces, the fronds of strange plants undulating - the only word that fits, _unda,_ the wave, she never learned Latin but her parents taught her the words. And she can breathe still in spite of the water that holds up her hair and moves her through the grottos. She doesn't bother to check her throat for gills; she simply accepts that she can breathe and swims onwards. Downwards.

She remembers the van splashing into the water, washing into the filling glass coffin like the little mermaid and Snow White together. But the mermaid didn't fall asleep or fall awake, she melted to foam on the surface of the waves because she couldn't steal the prince away from his intended. Is Ariadne going to dissolve? Will she unravel into threads because she's being pulled between Arthur and Eames, between dreams and reality, between research and whatever it is that's calling her onwards? The current pulls her along and the waves push her back and forth, just gently. Fish swim past in bright splashes of color, carrying their own light against the blue that comes from everywhere and nowhere. And then there's another current that pulls her towards the surface, she breaks the thin skin of the water and her head swims with the oxygen that hits her brain. The moon in the sky is hundreds of times as large as it should be but nobody seems to notice this unusual phenomenon. No one else seems to be in the ocean. She starts swimming, breaststroke, then rolls over, backstroking along in the direction of the waves and watching the moon watch her swim. There's no sound but the waves and the cry of a lonely gull and the wind, and the wind calls her name, and 

"Ariadne?" Dr. Hwang and Evan and Lizzie are all peering at her. The part of her that's still in the dream wants to claw the heavy wet hair back, flip her head upside down and then snap it back upright. But her hair is dry and so are her clothes.

"Where did you go?" asks Evan. "I followed you down to the tunnels but I got lost, I didn't see where you went after that."

"I kept going," Ariadne says. These are her soul-secrets, the ones she won't tell anybody, not even Arthur or Eames. This is what she's going to do.

"That was beautiful," Lizzie says frankly. And then she blushes, color high on her cheeks, because beauty is not really what they're meant to be measuring.

"Very interesting," says Dr. Hwang.

And Ariadne knows what she has to do.

 

**17 // you can say it one more time what you don't like**

 

"So you're leaving us?"

Ariadne stands in the doorway and nods. This has been coming for a while now, what had to happen when she realized research was no longer enough for her. Dr. Hwang looks at her again, that same piercing gaze that makes Ariadne feel like an experiment. Which she was, all along.

"May I ask what you plan to pursue, or is that too personal?"

The answers spring to her tongue: walk in the clouds. Gather stars and scatter them at the feet of billionaires. Build skyscrapers with foundations of ice and fill lakes with the sky above. Drill spiral staircases down to hollow caverns filled with creatures that have never seen the sun. Walk into her favorite storybooks and face down snow queens and hydras and maddened kings. Tilt the world on its axis till rivers flow backwards. There's a PASIV waiting under the bed in her apartment thanks to Arthur's connections, but most of her possessions have already been put in storage and she's planning to take the device and a single suitcase to New York. She'll figure things out from there.

"Work on my art," she says finally.

"Well, then. The best of luck to you," Dr. Hwang says, setting down her tablet and giving Ariadne another long, measuring look. "Did you complete an exit interview?"

"Yes." And hooked up a very small and unobtrusive flash drive to one of the computers while Matt's back was turned and downloaded the software she needed. The hard drives are easy enough to come by, the PASIV is a one-time investment, but there was no other way to get this and she couldn't have built it by herself. So be it; this is far from the most criminal act she's committed, and frankly Matt isn't so clever or so charming that she particularly cares about pulling one over on him. Perhaps she's spent too long with people who operate under flexible moral codes.

"Please make sure to turn in your badge on the way out. And if you ever wish to come back to dreaming - well. To join us in our research, you need only ask."

Ariadne nods, afraid to say more. Don't give away more than is necessary; don't spin tales to try and cover up a lie. Traps waiting in front of her feet. She'll miss the doctor but she can't let that emotion lead her into a lapse of judgment.

On her way down the hall, she sees Lizzie, who gives her a sorrowful smile. "It's not going to be any fun without you around," Lizzie confides, leaning close under the buzzing fluorescent light.

"I think you'll be okay," Ariadne says. And she's given them plenty of material for papers. For a moment she wants to invite Lizzie back for dinner, plug them into her PASIV and show her exactly what she's planning. But it's too risky, and a risk that's impossible to account for. "You could be really good at this, you know. Not just the research. There's so much more you can do with it." Which is probably saying too much. But Lizzie is shaking her head already.

"I'm a scientist. Not an artist."

"You can be both," she says, placing each word gently. Suddenly it seems important to make this clear. "You can do more than just placing electrodes."

"Maybe after I get my doctorate," Lizzie replies, half-laughing, and just like that the moment is gone. Perhaps it takes a certain sort of person to take that leap, to choose this life, one where the sky can be as solid as the ground underfoot.

"Well. Take care of yourself, Lizzie," Ariadne says, adjusting her bag on her shoulder. Lizzie gives her another smile, a little puzzled, already distant.

"You too. And good luck." And then she's gone, sneakers squeaking on the floor, and Ariadne keeps walking, pausing to drop her badge at the security desk and waving goodbye to the guards who have never noticed her face. Why do they keep wishing her luck? Maybe luck exists, or fate, but it's neither good or bad. It's whatever comes. All anyone can do is make their own choices, plan their possible moves and then see how the game plays out.

Besides, Ariadne isn't exactly quitting everything and moving to the middle of nowhere to pursue her plans. There are options. She goes down to Paper Source and picks out a sheet of the most luxurious creamy stock she can find, heavy and textured against her hands like the pages of the journal from Arthur. She buys a fountain pen and ink and sits at the wobbly kitchen table in her apartment and thinks. And she starts writing, using phrases like _our shared association_ and _the depths of dreaming_ and _expressed interest in my future endeavors,_ and then pauses. Each word has to be laid down carefully; she's not fighting gravity or physics but the weight of something a little more dangerous. Asking for favors from the chairman of one of the largest energy conglomerates on the face of the planet would be terrifying enough if she didn't also know just what he was capable of on a personal level.

Yet she also remembers the look on his face as they stepped into her levels, the admiration as the city unfolded itself out from the center of the intersection where they stood, his fingers brushing over the banister of the hotel. The way he would stand at the edge of her workspace, just watching, not intrusive. Just curious. And that makes her daring, makes her ask - not for patronage, not exactly, but whether he knows any fellow connoisseurs, people with more money than God and an appreciation for breaking the boundaries of possibility. If he decides to take a more personal interest, if he simply makes her name known, if he wants an initial test - all of those things are acceptable. At the bottom she signs her name. For a moment she considers whether to add anything else. But this is Saito. If he wants to make her an offer, he'll find her.


	3. Chapter 3

**18 // "is there a Signal there on the other side"**

 

It's a lovely day when her phone rings. She remembers that later: the clear delicate blue of the early summer sky, fluffy white clouds gamboling along like happy sheep, the heat of the day warm but not overpowering. The forecast was so nice that she put on a skirt for once and enjoyed the feeling of it flipping around her knees all morning. It's lunchtime and she's thinking about nothing in particular. Later this worries her; shouldn't she remember? Probably about where to get her sandwich and what she'll have on it and what might be fresh. Certainly not about Arthur or Eames, except possibly in the vague sense that it might be nice to have a companion or two for lunch.

So she's completely unprepared when she answers her phone and instead of someone from the lab or her mother or one of her friends it's Eames, sounding like pronouncing the four syllables of her name is costing him his last breaths. They very well might be.

"Eames?" she says carefully. "What is it? What's wrong?" Usually when he calls it's all plummy greetings and overly precious endearments.

He stammers, and that sends her right past concern and straight into fear, because she has never heard this from him. Even during the Fischer job he was angry, masking whatever else he might have felt with cut-glass enunciation and words hurled like weapons. "Slow down and take a deep breath," she tells him, and tries to take her own advice. She hates standing in the middle of the sidewalk and talking on the phone.

"It's Arthur," he says, and everything stops. Something opens up inside her and leaves her feeling hollow and for a moment, absurdly, she stops and turns to make sure she hasn't left any vital organs on the sidewalk behind her. But no, everything's still inside, and she realizes Eames is still talking.

"I couldn't - I can't get him out, Ariadne. Bad batch of drugs, I already called Yusuf, but -" He stops and she hears staticky noises that must mean he was affected by the adulterated somnacin as well. "I need you, Ariadne. He needs you. You've done it before. You have to bring him back." He sounds panicky, confused, _lost_ , like - well, rather like she feels at the moment.

She reaches into her pocket for her totem. Nowadays her dreams are nothing like reality but she still needs to check. But it's there, light as ever, the three jagged scratches on the rim of the opening where she hollowed it out and the drill skipped, the notch at the top that fits her thumbnail perfectly. So this is real.

"Where are you?"

"Greece." She holds back the hysterical laughter she can feel bubbling up. At least she'll be able to read the signs there.

"I love you," she says to reassure him. It's the first time she's said it straight out to him, but she's trying so hard to not panic that it barely signifies. "I'll be there as soon as I can."

That turns out to be the next day. She spends an exorbitant amount of money to be on a flight leaving New York that evening. She uses the passport Arthur got her for the Fischer job and refuses to cry when she pulls it out of her bag. She doesn't sleep on the plane; every time she closes her eyes she sees the city, the hotel, the mountain and the fortress. Every minor patch of turbulence is a kick that keeps her up and she draws with shaky lines on the tiny tray table and urges the plane forward ever faster. Her seatmate snores and while it's annoying it's also comforting in a strange way, something real and unpredictable and reminding her that the world isn't actually ending. It just feels like it might be.

There's a stop in Zurich and she leaves the plane and dredges up her French and then remembers that they speak German here, until finally the man at the counter takes pity on her and asks what she would like in English. The coffee keeps her awake halfway to Athens, but she must sleep at some point because they're landing. There's a wild moment of terror before she finds her totem in her pocket and the scars on its base, and that gets her through till they've stopped and she can knock it over and start to calm down.

She texts Eames while she's waiting in line for customs, the people shuffling forward at a rate that makes her want to scream. The answer comes quickly: _outside in blu van se eu soon_. And indeed, there is a hideous powder blue van waiting that looks to be mostly held together with rust. Yusuf is waiting outside, his goatee now a proper beard and his smile flashing in the middle of it when he sees her.

"Ariadne," he says, voice warm. "A pleasure to see you again, even under these circumstances." He kisses her cheek and takes her bag without waiting for an answer - are all dream criminals afflicted with gallantry, or just the ones she met? "Perhaps you can convince Eames to let me drive, as he has not slept in the past two days." The side door rolls open and Eames glares out at her with bloodshot eyes, and he looks like hell. Yusuf rolls the small suitcase at him and he barely manages to catch it.

"I'm fine," he snaps.

"You have trouble with the sides of the road when you're well rested," Ariadne sighs, clambering into the van. "And you look like creepers in this van. I hope nobody calls the police and thinks you're kidnapping me."

"An unfortunate necessity," Yusuf says, closing the door and going around the front to get in the driver's seat. The back row of seats has been ripped out and there are crates filling the space that chime gently against each other when he starts the engine with a coughing rumble.

He has to concentrate too much on the city traffic and the winding roads to talk, so Ariadne turns to Eames, who hasn't bothered moving up to shotgun but is slumped against the windowless wall of the van. "Now that I'm here, are you going to explain what the hell happened?" she asks, and it comes out more fiercely than she intended. But damn it, she dropped her life and ran when he called, he can tell her what the fuck is going on.

Eames rubs a hand over his face, covering his bloodshot and red-rimmed eyes and then his dry, chapped lips. "We were running a job. It was supposed to be simple, in and out, didn't need a chemist. So I went to a supplier the architect recommended." She doesn't ask who was doing the build. It's not important. "They seemed fine, the drugs seemed fine, but we went under to learn the level and everything was... wrong."

"Wrong how?" Ariadne says. She's gripping the seat under her with both hands, to keep her balance and to keep her nails from cutting into her palms.

"Mattias couldn't maintain the level. It was like a bloody Surrealist painting, walls melting all over and the street sticking to our feet. We were meant to be suppressing projections but they started popping up anyway." He stops. That can't possibly be the end of it. She puts a hand on his arm and waits.

"They looked... off. Too many limbs, or none at all, or kind of stuck together. And vicious. Then the level started collapsing as they set on us. Mattias went out first. I was trying to wake Arthur up when they got to me." It sounds like he's holding back tears, like he isn't aware he's speaking to her anymore. Her hand slides down to hold his and he clutches at it; she can feel her knuckles grinding together, but she doesn't complain.

"And then?"

Eames covers his eyes again, pinches the bridge of his nose then rubs under it briefly. "I was too busy being quite thoroughly sick to see where Mattias went. By the time I was able to do anything, he was gone, the infusion had run out, and Arthur - he - he was still asleep."

"Did you drop in after him?"

He shakes his head. "Didn't want to risk it with the bad mixture. And I had to explain to our erstwhile employer why we would not be delivering the goods as planned. Which she was quite thrilled about, as I'm sure you can imagine." But he's holding back. So she lets him go quiet but keeps hold of his hand as Yusuf guides the van through the city. Finally they pull up to a small stucco house with a sickly-looking tree in the front, and Ariadne slips her hand free so she can help bring the crates inside. Yusuf has commandeered the kitchen and the downstairs bath, and there's no sign of a bed in the living room, so she heads up the stairs with trepidation.Two tiny bedrooms are on one side of the landing, both empty; she pushes open the door to the third feeling like she's in a fairytale and is about to see something horrible.

But it's just Arthur. He looks like - well, like he's just sleeping. His hair is falling out of its slicked-back style and he's all stubbled, but those are the only things out of the ordinary. He's still breathing. Just asleep. If only it were easy as kissing him awake. She backs out of the room and shuts the door softly, as if the noise might wake him when nothing else has.

Eames is pressed against one of the other doors when she turns around; someday she'll have to ask him how he manages to sneak around so effectively being so big. She grabs his arm and pulls him into one of the little rooms and drags him to sit next to her on the bed and tucks her feet up underneath her and fixes her gaze on him.

"Now will you tell me why you didn't go back after him? And don't tell me it's the drugs, that wouldn't stop you any other time."

"Don't," he snaps, starting to get up, and she pulls him back down and shoves him a little to make him sit further back. And maybe he's just hit his breaking point because he sort of crumples in on himself, shoulders hunching and head dropping down.

"Fuck, Ariadne, you've no idea, do you?" His hand goes to his pocket, and she looks away.

"I've been to Limbo, Eames. And --"

"Yes, for a few minutes. And you - you don't understand. You don't - I'm a Forger, all right? I spend my time in dreams being other people, I do that half the time when I'm awake as well. Do you have any idea how easy it would be down there to lose myself? It happened to Mal and she was so sure, so easy in herself. I'd be lost so fast... not just thinking it was my reality, but thinking I was someone else." His voice is ragged and strained, like he's hauling stones out from the bottom of a well. There's really nothing she can say to that, so she touches him, brushing the unwashed hair out of his face and putting a hand on the side of his neck. It's not even surprising when he hauls her into his lap and holds her close, sucking in breaths like he's been under water too long. She's holding the back of his head with one hand and rubbing his shoulder with the other when he says something she doesn't quite catch.

"After what?" Her voice is steady. That's unexpected. She feels his cheek shifting against her throat. Is he smiling?

"After we'd sorted things out. We can talk about that later, love." He pulls back and kisses her gently, just once, chaste and light. "You get some sleep, and I'll go help Yusuf unpack."

She eyes him skeptically. Sorting things could mean a number of different possibilities and she has more questions now than she did before. "Won't sleep just make me even more jet-lagged?"

"With any luck, you'll be dropping tonight, so you may as well rest." He cups her face, small and delicate against his big calloused hand.

"You should rest too." It's too easy to weave her fingers into his hair and tug just a little. "When's the last time you slept?" The lack of effort he puts into pretending he's fine tells her everything she needs to know. She wants to tell him that she'll get Arthur back but she can't bring herself to assert that, not when she's not sure whether it's even possible. "Come on. Yusuf will manage fine without you." Either Eames really is exhausted or he's been waiting for someone to tell him what to do; he sits patiently while she toes off her shoes and strips off half of her clothes, removing his belt and kicking his loafers under the bed. And then he curls up beside her on the narrow mattress and tucks her head under his chin and wraps his arms around her, and somehow she thinks it's less to keep her from falling off and more to keep himself from falling away.

 

**19 // so i ran faster but it caught me here**

 

As much as Ariadne would prefer to drop the moment she wakes up from her jet-lag-induced nap, that isn't going to happen. Yusuf hooks Arthur up to an IV and spends the next few days holed up in the kitchen, analyzing what's left of the bad somnacin and putting together a counteragent. He wants to give Arthur's system time to flush out whatever sent him down and locked him in. The rest of it will be up to Ariadne.

Patience has never been the first of her virtues, and there's little she can do to plan for whatever's waiting down there for her.

"The thing is," she says to Yusuf while he's washing glassware, perched on the counter near him. "He's probably not in Limbo at all."

"How so? That's what the dreams are built on, no?" he asks. He doesn't look up from the sink but he's clearly attentive, head cocked slightly.

"Sort of. Limbo is what happens when you have multiple dreamers. It's a shared space. That's why regular dreams collapse into a blank slate if there are too many external stressors. If it's individual it's just... whatever's inside your head."

"So Arthur is in a labyrinth of his own making?" His gaze flicks to her for a moment, and she snaps the dishtowel at him irritably.

"Stop that," she says. There's a reason she didn't pick a spool for her totem, and there are things she doesn't want to live up to. Especially not here; they might not be in Crete but she's beginning to feel a little superstitious, feeling like Oneiros and Thanatos are breathing down her neck and jealous Hera is going to punish her for her temerity. But that's all silly and made-up.

Yusuf shies away from the dishtowel and chuckles, handing her a beaker to dry off. "Did you learn this during your experiments?" he asks. She isn't sure how much Eames might have told him about her job, but it's easy enough to talk about what she's been doing for the past year, nondisclosure agreements be damned. Surely there's an exception for talking to known criminals. It's not as if Yusuf is going to poach their research or steal Dr. Hwang's thunder by coming out with an article three months before her.

"They weren't my experiments," she says finally. That earns her a shake of Yusuf's head.

"You hypothesized, tested and evaluated. And you have learned a great deal, it seems. You're certain about not returning to our line of work?"

"It's not for me," she answers as he turns off the water and takes the dishtowel to dry his hands. "But I may need a supplier."

"I can recommend some to you. Unless you'd like to visit Mombasa - but smuggling does not strike me as your strong suit." He grins and she laughs, and for a moment it's just nice to be in the kitchen with an old friend.

Eames doesn't spend much time around her, and she's not sure if that's out of guilt or frustration or simple wariness. He gives Yusuf as much information as he can about the bad somnacin, he occasionally makes tea or endless glasses of water, but mostly when Ariadne goes looking to bring him some food he's sitting by Arthur's bedside. A pointless vigil, but she can understand the impulse. Part of her wants to offer to relieve him at his post. But frankly it creeps her out a little, and the last thing she needs when she's planning to infiltrate Arthur's subconscious is to sit with him imagining all the terrible things that could be going on inside his head. Instead she sketches and draws endless mazes in all sorts of shapes and goes down to the neighborhood market every day for fresh pitas and yogurt with honey and squares of baklava that stick her fingers together and make her think of long-ago childhood trips with her parents. Would this feel less surreal if she didn't have years of memories tied to this country, to the baking heat and the scrubby trees and the bowl of blue sky overhead, to the gods that still seem to tread the land beneath her feet and demigods and heroes stealing girls with her name?

Finally, agonizingly, Yusuf decides that conditions are suitable for her attempt. After months of dropping in a sterile, clinical setting with electrodes pinned to her head, lying down on the scratchy felted blanket next to Arthur feels incredibly unsafe. But her first shared dream happened in a lawn chair stolen from someone's backyard and placed in a disused warehouse. This is positively sparkling by comparison. Eames hooks up Arthur with careful attention, taking a moment to find a usable spot in a forearm that's pocked with the marks of his profession. Ariadne is about to connect her own lead when Eames beats her to it, the gentle touch of his fingers almost an apology for his distance over the past few days. When he finishes, he presses a kiss to her palm, and when her bewildered gaze catches his he smiles briefly.

"When you're ready, Ariadne," Yusuf says, standing at the foot of the bed with the PASIV before him. "We'll be waiting." She nods and he pushes down the central plunger, and

There's no beach. No wind, no light, no sound of crashing waves, no water pouring over her head and into her mouth and nose and trying to steal her breath. Blinking, her eyes adjust; she is standing in a dimly lit hallway, polished wood floors stretching away in either direction and doors lining the walls. If this is what Arthur is really like on the inside, she isn't sure if that's perfect or a little pathetic. Then again, she rarely looks inside her own head. Maybe it's organized neatly in a clean Modernist structure. This feels a little dusty, though, even if the floors are clear and the air is clean. It's just... still. And quiet. And some of these doors look like they haven't been touched in ages even without a coating of dust.

The hallway is straight in either direction and seemingly endless. Or at least it looks that way. Who knows what sorts of tricks and traps and dead ends Arthur has built into this place? But Ariadne flat out refuses to dream herself a ball of thread. She'll figure this out herself. She glances left, then right, and shrugs and heads for the end of the hall. Maybe Arthur is so meticulously organized that he'll have a map in the stairwell. Assuming there is one.

The hall bends eventually but doesn't stop, and finally Ariadne makes it to a set of double doors. Cautiously she pushes one open, sighing with relief when it's just an empty stairwell. A very nice one, with hardwood treads and a banister that looks like it's been carved or grown out of one huge tree. But the stairs are standard other than that. If it were her head, she thinks, they'd be spirals.

So the question becomes: up or down? And which is which? She looks around and doesn't see a map, so she goes back the way she came. This time she pauses to look at a door. _Helsinki,_ it says, and she opens it and sees - nothing. No, that's not true, there's a small card table in there with a phone book and an old-fashioned rotary phone. The phone rings and Ariadne startles, feeling like a cat with its tail up and fur puffed out. Without thinking she darts forward and picks up the phone but hears nothing but whispering and a faint thread of what might be harp music.

The next door says _Athens_ , but when she opens it there's overwhelming light and heat. As she closes the door she thinks she hears a low chuckle that sounds like Eames. Behind another door is a tiny closet stacked floor to ceiling with the notebooks he favors, flat on the backs with notations on the bottom of the pages. It's either code or shorthand, and she doesn't want to waste time trying to decipher them. So she closes the door marked _Scientia_ and keeps walking.

There's another stairwell at the other end of the hallway and she follows this one down to the next floor. Ariadne is operating under no particular logic; there's no feeling of the right place to go, no sense of an end of the dream tugging her onward. Besides, he might be moving from room to room. It would be fitting that he wouldn't feel safe, even here inside his own head. So far there haven't been any projections but that doesn't mean there won't be any. Shivering, Ariadne pulls her sweater tighter - she recognizes it as one of the baggy cardigans she was wearing the last time Arthur visited, the rusty color like a splash of dried blood against her dark jeans. And yet her feet are bare, soles slapping lightly against the wooden floors. It reminds her of the halls of some of the older colleges she's visited with her parents, before everything gets renovated into clean white plaster and dingy carpet or squeaky linoleum. Maybe Arthur went to one of those schools. She's never asked him.

The rest of the floor proves just as mystifying but not productive - a room papered over with numbers, a room where the floor is covered in ticker-tape that's covered in Morse code, a door that let out nothing but bewildering chatter in so many languages talking over one another that only senseless noise dominates. At the other end of the hall is a window, the panes too clouded to see through and the frame firmly locked. None of the doors seem to have changed places as she walks back down the hall to the stairwell, which is mildly comforting. Easier to find a moving target in a stationary maze.

The next floor down the lights seem a little dimmer. But that might just be her imagination. That sense of dust in the air is growing heavier, though, an impression that isn't dispelled by the room full of encyclopedias or the door that reveals many tight-furled cylinders of maps. A laugh escapes her throat when she finds a player piano that starts rattling off a ragtime tune she almost remembers; did Arthur play the piano? How did she not know that about him? That thought cuts the laugh short and she eases the door shut. Another room draws her in past the threshold; it's full of stars, and when she steps in she realizes she can't see the ground. It might be her imagination, but she thinks there's an arc of stars that's brighter than the rest. And she can pick out Orion as well. But the lack of floor and the swing of the stars is too dizzying and she fumbles behind herself for the knob and pulls herself out.

There's a scheme here that's eluding her, and the knowledge that it's all organized is maddening because she can't quite puzzle it out. What does the room with the empty fish tank mean? She can guess why the door marked _New Orleans_ hides nothing but a blare of sound and music and the scent of magnolia and alcohol, but why is the one marked _Houston_ a room full of mirrors? What's inside the wardrobe in an alcove that's rocking back and forth? Maybe if she finds Arthur soon she can ask him. If he hasn't already lost his damned mind.

Down to the next floor, darker still, and she's opening fewer doors now. One room holds nothing but bolts of cloth. Most of them are in the neutral tones Arthur favors, pale as bone, dark as earth, an incongruous heap of camouflage, but there are splashes of color - a salmon silk, rich purple satin, weathered blue denim, and a slender fall of saffron, and probably more if she ventured down the aisle but she doesn't have time for that right now. She opens one door and almost screams, because she thinks she sees a child inside and projections of children still make her nervous. Then she realizes it's a mannequin and she does scream. Quietly. It's wearing pyjamas with dinosaurs all over them and has a mop of brown hair and it has, amazingly, a stuffed stegosaurus clutched in its arms. Ariadne backs out of the room and shuts the door and leans against it. That's worse than the bathtub full of something milky that she only sees from the doorway marked _PASIV Mk. II_.

But amid all the confusion there are things she recognizes, from his stories and from the short time they've known each other. _Mumbai_ is nothing but pouring rain and Eames's delighted laughter. _Day 3_ is the warehouse and a scrap of her own voice talking about "...pure creation." A door marked in Hebrew holds darkness and flickering flames and soft chanting. One room is nothing but a screen with a projector and film reels; the top one says "Sherlock Jr." There's a door for Yusuf, a door for Saito, and one marked _Fischer Job_ that she touches with her fingertips before walking away. Other doors with names she knows from other jobs he's described, one that says _Nash_ that's been nailed shut and some that have padlocks. And yet when the doors are closed to each room and the sounds are shut away, she hears nothing but her own footsteps and breath and heartbeats. Ariadne hasn't been willing to admit it to herself, because the possibility that she can't find him is not one she'll consider. He has to be down here somewhere. And he would not run from her.

Sooner than she expected, she comes to the bottom. The stairs end in a blank square of concrete. Just beyond the circle of light cast by the bulb - bare in its socket down here, not ornamented by a sconce or shade - is a door that looks like something from a bank vault or a submarine. Arthur wasn't in the Navy, as far as she knows, but perhaps it's just his own way of demarcating whatever's down here. If she had the sense to be scared, she might be terrified. After all, Cobb hid the worst secrets of his life in the basement. But Arthur's left the door ajar and there's nothing standing in her way. And there's a light flickering behind the door, warm and soft even as the shadows bite it back.

It turns out to be one light for the whole hallway, stretching down into the darkness. Everything sounds soft, her footsteps swallowed up by the quiet. There are three names on the door to her right, _William_ and _Richard_ and _Henry,_ and she eases it open and hears masculine laughter and a rustle of fabric before she shuts it. The door opposite has _Mom & Dad_; it's tempting but the doorknob is so cold under her fingers that it burns the skin and she snatches her hand back, jamming it under the other arm till she can feel the prickling of sensation return. Further down are _Phillipa and James_ , and _Cobb_ \- she wouldn't open that one for anything in the world, or the one next to it marked _Mal_ that has an ornate key stuck in the lock. There are a few more doors with names she doesn't recognize and walks past slowly. And then where the light shades into darkness, just barely catching on an enormous furnace at the back of the basement, she sees two more doors. On the left, instead of a nameplate, is a maze in the shape of a bishop; on the other is a roulette wheel with a poker chip in the center. For a moment she wants to laugh, because it's so painfully literal, and laughing would keep her from having an overflow of emotion that is really goddamned inappropriate for the situation. Those are two doors she would never dare open. After another longing glance she shakes her head and keeps moving out of the light.

There's something in the dark there, next to the furnace, and Ariadne reaches in her pocket and pulls out a flashlight - then changes her mind. It becomes a glowing sphere of no particular material, casting a softer light on the hallway. And what she thought she saw resolves into one booted foot and a skinny leg in dark brown fabric.

"Arthur?" She steps closer, careful, bare feet soundless on the concrete beneath her. There's no metallic click of a safety but that doesn't mean he doesn't have a gun.

"Are you real?" It sounds frighteningly young. But the foot looks to be the right size and it's wearing one of those boots he adores and wears with everything. Is this what Arthur sounds like when he's scared?

"Yes. How can I make you believe me?" She rounds the corner of the great metal tank and sees him, looking - well, looking like Arthur. A terrified and exhausted and improbably bearded Arthur, but still the man she came down here looking for.

"I don't know," he admits. His hands are empty, loosely resting on the knee of his other leg, curled up under him. His collar is open and his throat is - what are those lines? She's never noticed them before. "But you're not wearing a dress. You always wear a dress when I project you. I don't know why."

"How long have you been down here?" She sits down gingerly, close enough to touch but not touching him, and settles the glowing sphere in her lap. It's not as hot as she expected next to the furnace.

"Too long. I stopped counting after a week. Figured either someone would find me or I'd stop caring." He reaches over for the sphere and she can see more lines down his wrist, and -

"Arthur." Her hand catches his, turns it over towards the light. Those are scars. "What have you been doing?"

His smile is utterly empty, bitter and strange. "Tried to wake myself up. It didn't work. So I stopped." Now that he's been pulled closer to the light she can see the scars on both temples, circular wounds that have healed over cleanly. "Whatever was in those compounds kept me down." Ariadne can't stop her fingers from running up his wrist, lifting his hair away from his face, and he flinches like the skin is still tender, so she stops.

"It was nasty stuff," she says, letting her hand fall to rest on top of his, cradled on the bend of his knee. "Yusuf wanted to make sure it was out of your system before I came in."

"What about Eames?" If he were himself that would probably sound casual, but instead his voice quakes like he can barely hold back - rage, and sorrow, and worry.

"He was sick," she says frankly. Which is true. "But he made it out. And then he called Yusuf, and then he called me."

"And you came?"

"I came to get you," she says agreeably, and the sphere shrinks and disappears. Arthur's hands fold around hers in the dark. "Let's go."

She leads him out of the basement, resolutely not turning towards the doors lining the walls, and doesn't pause on any of the floors. But she does ask the question that's been waiting behind the fear and the concern and the held-breath atmosphere.

"Did you build it like this on purpose?"

"Memory palaces," he says, reaching one hand out as if to touch a door marked _Grant._ The other hand stays linked with hers. "You have to have a system."

"Even for your subconscious?" The lights have been getting brighter as they walk, she realizes, the ornate sconces throwing fewer shadows on the walls and floor. Are they staying lit behind them? Part of her doesn't want to look back - the fatal mistake, she remembers from Orpheus and Aeneas weeping over Dido and the other stories her parents told her at bedtime. But Arthur's beside her, holding her hand. She decides not to risk it.

At the top floor they stop. The stairs end and the walls of the stairwell are blank.

"Well?" she asks. If this were a regular dream she'd add a door. Here, though, that could have unfortunate consequences. Arthur gives her a look and then glances upward, and she realizes that the skylight is actually built to open all the way. "Can you give me a boost, then?"

His mouth twists in something that might be intended as a grin, and he crouches down in front of her and cups his hands. Those long, strong fingers are cold under her bare foot as he vaults her up and she steps onto his shoulders; they wrap around her ankles to keep her steady while she fiddles with the latch. It comes free with a few flakes of rust and she hauls herself through, rolling onto the slate tiles and scrabbling not to slide down the gentle slope. There's a clang and a thud as Arthur heaves himself through the skylight and nearly rolls on top of her. His hand grips her elbow, to steady them both.

"Not much out there," he says. There is a great quiet forest surrounding the - the building; she hesitates to call it a _house._ Trees close together block out the rest of the world. Or the void that would be there instead. It's easy to mistake nothingness for shadows through the branches and leaves, shifting to fill any gaps.

"There doesn't need to be, I suppose," she says, shifting and finding his hand with hers, slotting her fingers between his. "Are you ready?" They stand and walk to the edge of the roof, and though she hasn't noticed anything moving or the trees growing smaller or the building shifting they're now far higher up. A proper height. It's not the fall that kills you, she thinks, and presses her lips together.

"This better work," he says. The tone is skeptical and purely him, but his hand is tight around hers.

"Trust me," she answers, and they jump.

 

**20 // tell me you're crazy maybe then i'll understand**

 

Yusuf stays for a few more days to monitor Arthur; he needs to get back to his responsibilities in Mombasa, but he wants to be sure Arthur's clean. And sane, she thinks, but nobody wants to talk about that. Nobody wants to talk about how he might turn into another hollow-eyed waking dreamer, even though he always nods with satisfaction when he rolls his die. He's still rolling it far too often for Ariadne's tastes.

She worried, after they woke up, whether he would believe it was reality. Whether he'd keep trying to wake himself up. But he only tries once; she walks into the kitchen to find him with a bright crimson line down his arm and a knife in his other hand. He looks up with eyes that are far more calm than she expected.

"They always healed faster," he says, and then she's pressing the dish towel against his arm and the knife is clattering into the sink. It's a shallow cut, smallest of mercies, and the bleeding soon slows and stops. She pulls him into the bathroom and bandages him up. She can't meet his eyes.

"Please don't do that again."

"I don't need to." He catches her hand. "It didn't heal, so I'm not stuck in my own head anymore, Q.E.D." His eyes are dark and intent when she looks up. Does she have any choice but to believe him?

The next day Ariadne sits on the roof, back against the low wall and face tilted to the sun. She hears the door and cracks an eye open, expecting Eames to show up with his crumpled pack of cigarettes. The forger's been avoiding both of them, as near as she can tell, tying up whatever loose ends remain with the botched job and catching up with Yusuf and determinedly acting like everything's fine. But much to her surprise it's Arthur stepping out of the dim shade of the building and into the heat. Part of her expects him to make a comment about how she's getting her shorts all dirty. The rest of her knows he's not much for snappy remarks right now. So she keeps her mouth shut and lets her eye close again and listens for the sound of his feet on the roof.

A shadow falls over her face; when she opens her eyes Arthur is standing between her and the sun. "Mind if I join you?" he asks.

"Of course not," she replies, squinting as he moves to her side. He plucks at the knees of his trousers and settles himself carefully next to her. He moves like an old man, like all his bones have turned to glass, like he's still not sure the ground beneath him will stay solid and real. Ariadne doesn't move, but she is acutely aware that his arm is very close to hers and that if she shifted slightly their shoulders would touch. Still she does not move.

"I never thought I'd see this again," Arthur says finally. She rolls her head onto her shoulder to look at him, feeling the heat that means a sunburn's coming.

"You've been to Greece before?"

"The sun." Suddenly she is embarrassed, and she's about to shift her weight so she has a hand free to touch him, when he continues. "You. I didn't think I'd see you again."

Ariadne swallows the self-deprecating questions of disbelief and fits her hand to his face. The sharp line of his jaw is blurred by the stubble that's struggling to form a beard, rubbing and prickling against her palm when he turns his face to hers. It's not that she hasn't touched him since he woke up, but she hasn't touched him like _this_ in what seems like forever. Bandaging his arm was clinical. She's been looking after him, not looking at him. Time stretches out like a second-level dream as they move closer, his breath hotter than the still air around them. His lips are dry against hers and barely move, but his fingers card through the hair at her temple and send a shiver through her. She thinks of a maze and the bishop falling and a marble bouncing over a roulette wheel. When he pulls back with eyes still narrowed against the sun all the things she wants to say pile up on top of each other and she says precisely nothing.

The door creaks and she looks past Arthur to see Eames just as she'd expected earlier. There's a brief flash of something across his face, too dark and fast for her to name as jealousy or shock or intrigue. "Don't stop on my account, ducks," he says, voice too light and too hearty in the overheated air. Arthur drops his head to rest his forehead on her shoulder, and Ariadne rolls her eyes at Eames, and for a moment it feels like everything is back to normal again. Whatever that means. She feels greatly daring when she presses a kiss against the hair behind Arthur's ear. Her hand is now against the side of his neck and she can feel more than hear his intake of breath. But he doesn't move away from her. And she considers that a victory.

In the silence she can feel Eames doing his best to hold his tongue after that one remark, and she turns her head to find him looking out over the city. "Don't be an ass, Eames," she says, angling her voice away from Arthur's ear. "Come here." He glances over sharply, but after he's half-smoked his cigarette he ambles over and settles down behind Ariadne, perching on the low wall and letting his knee knock against her shoulder as he sits. She leans back against his legs. Amazingly, Arthur shifts to follow her, his long limbs folding as he arranges himself around her and her arm slides around his shoulders.

"Are you staying?" she asks, tilting her head up but not looking directly at Eames. In some ways it's easier not being able to see his face.

"No telling what trouble you two will get yourselves into without me," Eames says, voice light. His hand smooths down her hair, then stills.

"So you two --" Ariadne cuts herself off as Arthur tenses and Eames shifts. "Oh, for fuck's sake. You're ridiculous. Both of you."

"And yet you've decided to dally with both of us," Eames replies, lifting her hair away from her neck. "Which says something rather unflattering about your tastes."

"Eames, don't tease her." Arthur's so tired that what would normally be an order sounds more like a polite request, but he's still sitting up a little. He shifts so Ariadne's arm isn't stretching too far, which she finds promising. "Is this really a conversation you want to have?" he asks. "Is this what you want?"

"Yes," she answers immediately. Of course she does. Would she be here, between the two of them, if she didn't? There are things you do for friends and then there are the people for whom you'd do more, if they ask. If they need you. "Even if my taste in men is worse than Eames' taste in shirts."

"Oi," he says, pulling gently on a lock of her hair.

"Just - stay, all right? Till Arthur's better. We can figure things out from there." This seems like a fair compromise to Ariadne; if they're both here then the three of them can figure out just what it means. Because it would be foolish to think that just because she says she wants them both it's going to be that easy to fall into... something.

Arthur lifts his head to share a glance with her. "You think I need looking after?" It's probably meant to sound affronted but it just sounds tired, and Ariadne squeezes his shoulder gently.

"Yusuf does," she says, which isn't really an answer. But it would be yes.

"Which means you must really be crackers," Eames adds, throwing away his cigarette.

"Eames, shut up."

"All right. I'll stay." He sounds oddly subdued. If ordering them around and asking impertinent questions is her fate, Ariadne supposes she can handle that.

 

**21 // mass. is so big it can swallow swallow her whole star intact**

 

Arthur declines to join them when Yusuf's plane is scheduled to leave, so she hops in the rickety van with Eames and clings to her seat as they careen down the roads again. Leaving Arthur alone is a calculated risk, but it has to be done. His promises and assurances will have to be enough. The light and dust make it such that she can't tell if the streets are twisty, the other drivers are terrible, or Eames just can't drive at all. She and Yusuf are both laughing with relief when they finally stop, though, and she helps him get his suitcases out. Most of the bottles are staying, empty of their contents; a few are going on a boat to be shipped down the long way, through various hands.

"I wish you could stay longer," she says, even though she's not sure how much longer she's staying in Greece. It's not the place she wants to settle. Yusuf puts a heavy hand on her shoulder, looking down at her before he pulls her into a hug.

"I must get back. But if your travels ever bring you to Mombasa - well. I should like to go dreaming with you again." He pulls back and gives her a grin. "With fewer consequences, yes?"

"Yes," she agrees, and then he's through the doors and she's left standing on the pavement. A strange thrill runs through her then, climbing back into the van: it's just her and Arthur and Eames now, whatever that means for the three of them. They haven't really talked since that day on the roof. The men look a little easier around each other but they also seem to be avoiding one another still. One of them was always with Ariadne or Yusuf so they couldn't be alone together. A stupid phrase. Ariadne turns on the radio and turns it up, letting some horrible pop music she doesn't recognize fill the air with beats and static. Eames arches one eyebrow at her but returns his focus to the road.

When they pull up into the driveway, Ariadne heads down towards the road instead of up to the house.

"Where are you going?" Eames is leaning against the side of the van, looking nothing like himself in a pair of mirrored aviator shades. 

"To buy milk." He starts to walk towards her and she shakes her head. "And you're going to stay here and talk to Arthur."

Eames pouts slightly at her, eyes hidden behind those ridiculous shades. "Ordering me around?"

"Get used to it. And stop being such a goddamned coward." It's such a perfect line that she can't resist turning on her heel, picking her way down to the street and not looking back.

Sauntering down to the market and buying milk takes less time than she hopes it will even going as slowly as possible, but it's still a good while later when she comes back up the hill and round the back of the house. There are a number of fresh cigarette butts on the ground outside the kitchen door. One is still sending up a lazy tendril of smoke. Ariadne wonders just how much time Eames spent stalling. A lot, if the raised voices she hears are anything to go by. She eases the door open and sets down the bags and slips off her sandals and creeps through the kitchen and to the bottom of the stairs, listening. Their voices carry quite clearly. It sounds as if Eames has only just come upstairs to talk with Arthur; was she really gone so short a time, or did he really spend the entire time standing outside dithering? She wants to smack him, but she also wants to hear what they're saying.

"I'm sorry. For leaving you in there." Eames sounds sheepish, she notes as she steps onto the bottom stair.

Arthur just sounds tired. "You did what you thought you had to do. Protect yourself. I'd have done the same."

"No, you wouldn't have. You'd have gone after me and damn the consequences."

“So why didn't you?” It's calm, not accusatory.

“Because I...” A pause. She can almost see his face twisting. “I was scared, all right? A big bloody coward.”

“So it was bad enough that you wouldn't follow me in, but you'd let Ariadne go instead?”

“She's better than me. You know that. Don't get all chivalrous on me now.”

“I can't believe you waited for her to fly halfway around the world while you left me in there to _rot._ ” Now he sounds angry, properly angry, and she eases up the stairs and avoids the fourth step that always creaks.

“I didn't know what else to do, all right? I'm a bastard and a coward and --" His raised voice is cut off by a smacking noise, and there's the rattling thump of two bodies hitting the wall, and she hurries up the rest of the stairs more quickly, hoping they won't hear her footsteps over their fight.

"Would you just shut up?" Arthur says finally.

"I was _trying_ to apologize," Eames says, and Ariadne can see them, Arthur pinning Eames's larger body to the wall.

"And doing a really shitty job of it." This time she can see why they paused; they're kissing slowly, Arthur pressing closer to Eames as if he didn't already have him backed into a corner, and she probably wouldn't be able to hear them if she wasn't standing out on the landing, arrested by the sight. Intellectually she knew this was going on between them. The reality of it, though, is more than she expected, and it is - if she's honest with herself - really fucking hot. She has to keep silent and keep out of the way, she thinks, even as Eames breaks the kiss and draws in a great breath of air.

"I'm a bit out of practice, darling," he says, making it sound like an endearment instead of an insult.

"Then I guess I can forgive you," Arthur says, sounding somewhat irritated, like he's still mad at Eames even though they're basically grinding next to the flimsy dresser. But under the irritation is fondness, low and soft in a way Ariadne isn't used to hearing him use for anybody else. A wave of jealousy surges in her chest, but then it subsides. If this is what she wants, then she'll have to get used to hearing that.

"So you guys are okay now?" she hears herself saying, voice straining for brightness when she isn't sure if she's envious or afraid or what. When the pair of them whip their heads around and Arthur springs back, she almost wants to laugh. Now she can see the reddened mark high on Eames's cheekbone, and she gathers her fraying courage and steps over, inserting herself between them and reaching up to touch the incipient bruise. "Or do you want to smack each other around some more?"

"No, no, I think we're past that part of the evening," Eames answers, blinking down at her. His hands come to rest on her shoulders, heavy and undemanding. "Unless you'd like to take another shot, Arthur?"

"I think I've got it out of my system," he answers. The bed creaks under his weight; Ariadne turns and goes to him, crawling up over the end of the bed to kneel next to him. He's leaning back and turns to look at her, and it's all too easy to lean in and kiss him. And while they've slowly been touching more, dropping kisses like endearments and courtesies through the day, she's unprepared when he lets himself fall down and pulls her down with him. The squeak she makes is smothered in his lips as she lands half on top of his chest.

"Is there anything else you'd like to get out of your system?" she asks, breathless. Arthur raises one eyebrow, then flashes a smile - it's so like before that her heart aches for a moment.

"Maybe. But I might need some assistance, if Mr. Eames would be so kind." He looks past her with mingled playfulness and hope, like he's still not sure whether Eames is going to join them, whether any of them are ready for this. Ariadne rolls off him and onto her back beside Arthur, craning her neck to watch Eames' response.

The bed groans again as Eames sits down next to her, trailing his fingers through her hair where it's fanned out over the quilt. "Really, Arthur. The entire English language at your disposal, and you say 'maybe'? Have you no sense of romance?" Ariadne lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding as Arthur chuckles, shifting onto his side so she's bracketed between them.

"I thought that was your department, Eames. Charming the ladies." He props his head up on one hand, the other skimming down Ariadne's arm till she catches it and tangles her fingers with his.

"And the gentlemen. Mustn't forget them." Eames leans over Arthur and kisses him and Ariadne watches, entranced, because it looks like they have a lot of practice at this part. Finally they pull away, looking into each others' eyes and seeming to get lost there. Ariadne clears her throat and both men turn to look at her intently and it's just a little unnerving, being the subject of all that attention.

"Hi," she says eventually, and it sounds stupid to her ears. Eames gives her a grin that she refuses to think of as cocky.

"No, love, we haven't forgotten about you," he says, bending down and kissing her slowly, taking his time. Arthur's hand rests on her hip, long fingers warm through the fabric of her shirt. "Are you sure about this?" Eames asks, lips brushing against hers, voice almost a whisper.

The only feasible response seems to be wrapping an arm around his neck and pulling him back down for another kiss. And then there are lips on her throat, Arthur working his way down to her shoulder and scraping his teeth lightly over her collarbone and she shivers all the way to her fingertips. "Yes," she says, and "Hang on," and she tries to move her arm so she can either unbutton her shorts or pull up her shirt and nearly elbows Arthur in the ear. This is going to be slightly more complicated than she expected. Luckily Arthur just laughs and snakes a hand down to flip open the button on her shorts, and Eames helps her wriggle out of them, and then he sits up and pulls off his own shirt in one smooth motion that leaves her staring and wide-eyed. She's seen this before but it's still hard to believe sometimes - he almost looks like a cartoon, muscles on muscles with those tattoos swirling over his skin. Eames reaches across her and towards Arthur, and she watches him undo the first few buttons of Arthur's shirt one-handed.

"Come on, Arthur, we mustn't leave Ariadne waiting."

"Right, because you're not in a hurry to get me naked," Arthur says, but he's unbuttoning his shirt from the bottom up and shrugging it off just the same, fixing Eames with a wry glance. Ariadne just lies back and watches them, as they lean in for another kiss, and she feels really goddamned lucky right now. This time when the men pull apart they're both breathing a little more heavily. The afternoon light through the window gives the room a hazy feeling.

"Why am I the only one not wearing pants right now?" she asks, just to distract them. Eames' eyes are dark when he looks at her, his expression almost feral.

"Oh, I'm not sure, but I plan to take full advantage," he says. He leans down and pushes her shirt up, pressing his mouth to her stomach and kissing his way down past her navel and breathing over the wet trail to make her shiver. Ariadne scrambles backwards till she's lying diagonally across the bed and Eames takes up a position lying between her legs, palms flat against her thighs. Arthur is watching, eyes flicking back and forth like he doesn't know where to look first. She reaches for him, because how can she not? He helps peel her tank top off and palms her breast - Ariadne thanks her impulse to not wear a bra this morning - and leans down to kiss her just as Eames does the same over her panties. The noise she makes is halfway between a squeak and a groan. Arthur buries his face in the crook of her neck and laughs, more breath than sound.

"Arthur," she says, and it's meant to sound scolding but instead it comes out as a plea as Eames sucks gently through the cotton, his large hands holding her hips in place.

"Sorry," Arthur answers, kissing her neck and biting gently before he stands up and shucks the rest of his clothes. Eames lifts his head to watch as Arthur kicks his pants and boxers away and stretches out next to Ariadne, that same hungry expression on his face as he lifts a hand and palms Arthur's hip, thumb stroking down and in towards his cock. Arthur hisses and bucks towards him and against Ariadne and she catches her breath, reaching up to brace his shoulder.

"God, you - can you handle this?" she asks. Eames laughs against her stomach and she squirms, turning it into lifting her hips so he can slide off her underwear. When he lowers his head again and sets those stupid lips of his over her clit she inhales hugely, almost a gasp. Arthur cups her face in his hand and turns her to look at him, then kisses her as Eames sets about making her fall apart under his mouth. He's just too damned good with his tongue, here as in everything else, and Arthur is hitting every mark and slowly stroking her side and brushing up and over her chest to tease her nipples, and maybe it's just that she's spent so long in this tiny house with the two of them and never getting anywhere but it seems way too fast when her orgasm hits and she arches between them and gasps for air like she can't get enough oxygen.

Eames must take a few moments to take off his trousers because he's naked when he slides up next to her. He kisses her gently, chin slick and lips reddened, before putting his arm over her waist. But she still feels too keyed up, not nearly as relaxed as she normally would be, and she turns to Arthur and slides a hand down his flank and around to his ass and squeezes. He jerks again and shuts his eyes tightly and curses under his breath.

"Please," she says, rolling onto her side and pushing her hips against his, and his cock is hard against her thigh and he groans.

"Hold on," he says. She would, and wait patiently for him to fish a strip of condoms out of the nightstand drawer, but Eames has trailed his fingers down between her legs and is letting them dabble there, and it's making her a little incoherent. When Arthur turns back he curses again, louder, and reaches over and shoves at Eames' shoulder. "Jesus, can you - move, just..." Somehow they figure out what he means, the pair of them shifting so Eames is half-sitting up against the wall with a pillow shoved behind his back and Ariadne resting between his legs, cradled in his tattooed arms while Arthur kneels in front of her, rolling the condom on. She reaches over and helps - or interferes, possibly, stroking up and down and twisting her wrist as she does. Arthur closes his eyes again and draws in a slow breath, covering her hand with his own. Then he moves up a little and she's guiding him in and in and she tilts her hips up to meet him, and Eames makes a low noise of appreciation.

"Look at you. The pair of you," he says, close to her ear, and drops another kiss on her shoulder. Ariadne can't answer for a moment, just tips her head back and breathes, letting herself simply feel: filled up and held up and so full of sensation it's overwhelming, hands on her hip and shoulder and breast and belly, lips on her neck and brushing over her cheek and smearing words into her skin.

"Fuck," she says, coherence escaping her, and Arthur lets out a strangled noise that might be a laugh. "Yes, come on," she tells him. He starts to move and she can't keep quiet, moaning so loud she'd be embarrassed if she cared. One of her hands is digging into Arthur's hair, the other is clutching at Eames as he holds her up and leans past her to kiss Arthur and curse in a language she can't parse right now. She thinks, improbably, of tides and moons and eclipses tugging at the waves as Arthur thrusts again and again and Eames' cock nudges against her ass and the pair of them move and she is caught between them.

She tugs on Eames' wrist and his hand moves down and down and he begins tracing over her and down to where Arthur is sliding slickly in and out and back up, a slow lazy swirl that just makes the spiral of desire climb higher and darker inside her, and she is swallowing a star that pulses inside her and she cries out and knows nothing but that bright burn under her skin.

Soon she realizes Arthur is paused within her, all the way in, trembling with the effort, and Eames is bracing Arthur against her with a hand on his hip. With a kiss on Arthur's temple Ariadne tells him to go and he surges again, faster now, her thighs tight around his hips and Eames' hand raking down his back and he pushes forward even harder and trembles and stills and gasps without words.

Eames takes a ragged breath and lets it out slowly, rubbing a hand down Arthur's arm and up Ariadne's thigh. When she shifts a little against him he whimpers, which is a sound she's never heard him make, and she can't stop smiling.

"Yes, very funny, I'm sure," he says, sounding strained. Somehow she's reluctant to move, but Arthur sighs and manages to half-kneel and half-fall onto the bed beside them, flinging an arm over his eyes. Ariadne turns and kisses Eames properly, trying to make the kiss carry everything she's feeling and thinking right now, and he digs his fingers into her hair and cups the back of her head. He moans into her mouth when she works her hand between them and strokes his cock, fingers slippery with sweat. "Please, love," he murmurs. So she pulls away and slides down the bed and wets her lips and takes him in, suckling gently. She can't swallow him down but she goes as far as she can, letting her fingers wrap around his base and do the rest, stroking and twisting.

There's a nudge at her shoulder, different from the hand in her hair, and Ariadne pulls back to see Arthur, who swiftly takes her place with an ease that looks utterly familiar. His lips brush her fingers, still around Eames' cock, and she presses kisses against Eames' stomach and bites gently at the crest of his hip while she works her wrist in a slow curve and Arthur sucks him off. Above them Eames is swearing quietly, sacred and profane tumbling out of those ridiculous lips as she trades places with Arthur, who tells them how fucking amazing they look and trails his fingers through her hair and tugs gently. Arthur takes Eames in even deeper, throat working and mouth getting Ariadne's fingers all wet, and Ariadne rests her head on Eames' broad thigh and listens to the curses get all broken up as he comes.

Arthur pulls off and leans over and spits inelegantly into the wastebasket, and Ariadne laughs.

"Yes, hilarious," he says, reaching for her. She clambers over Eames' leg, curling into Arthur and bumping her nose against his. He kisses her, just a brief brush of lips, hand resting on her hip like it belongs there. A little while passes and Eames moves till he's behind her, then drapes his arm over her waist and rests his hand on Arthur's side. The breath he lets out ruffles the hair that's drying from where it was stuck to her neck. She wants to say something but nothing quite seems big enough for what's just happened, so she closes her eyes and lets herself drift on the sounds of the two men she loves breathing in and out.

 

**22 // then you say "right this is all mine"**

 

Somehow, Ariadne expects Eames to be the first one to leave. She hasn't talked to Eames or Arthur about how exactly they obtained the little house or how long they can stay on the outskirts of Athens, but intellectually she knows this can't last.

And yet she's the one packing up, getting ready to leave for a quick trip to Rome. Saito finally got back in touch with her, noting that he would be in the ancient city for a series of meetings and would she have time to show him her further work on the matters they were discussing earlier? One doesn't turn down a request like that. And Rome is a lot closer than Tokyo or Sydney or Los Angeles or any of the other cities where Saito does most of his business.

Arthur watches her packing, not raising an eyebrow as she rolls her clothes into tubes and stacks them inside the suitcase, wrapping the hard drive in a sweater before putting it in her laptop bag. "Are you bringing the PASIV?" he asks.

"I don't know if Saito has one," she says, shrugging. "He said there'd be a private plane to bring me over so there shouldn't be any issues. Are you sure you don't want to come?" She isn't sure whether she means to Rome or to the dreaming, but it's all the same at the moment.

"I'm sure. I have to clean things up here." Which is as much of an answer as she's going to get.

"Are you going to be here when I'm done, or should I look for you two somewhere else?" Ariadne can't look at him while she asks. His hand comes to cover hers.

"I have to go back to Chicago. But you - find a place, and we'll be there." That was definitely not the answer she was expecting, and Ariadne looks up. Arthur's watching her with that intent gaze, trying to impress upon her just how serious and truthful he's being. And Eames is standing in the doorway, his broad shoulders filling the frame. When did he show up? He nods, arms folded, flipping his poker chip over and over between finger and thumb.

"Do you mean that?" she asks, looking between them, not sure whether she feels trapped or terrified or exhilarated. The man who couldn't even tell her the city he lived in, the man who sheds identities as easily as his clothes, both of them looking back at her with eyes clear and unwavering.

"I'm all in, love," Eames says. "As long as it's not too cold." His lips curve slightly, the smile doing nothing to cover his nervousness. If she can tell, it's for a reason.

"Pick a city. We'll help with the rest." Arthur is earnest, no hint of a smile, looking more relaxed than she's ever seen him with his hair still tumbling around his ears and brows slightly raised, hopeful. She thinks, anyway. And this is more than she ever expected from either of them, in spite of the words she's said and the things they've been through, the tenuous threads linking the three of them together. She can see that binding them to each other, knitting Arthur's steadiness to her curiosity and Eames' impulsive quicksilver wit, becoming something breathtaking, and it stuns her with how much she wants all of a sudden. Ariadne swallows hard.

"I have to go. I don't want to miss my flight."

They nod and leave the room, a glance passing between them that she chooses to ignore as she goes back to packing. She takes a cab to the airport.

The private plane is small and luxurious and Ariadne would curl up and take a nap if she wasn't so jittery. It's impossible to tell what's nerves at showing Saito what she's been working on and what's a somewhat delayed reaction to Arthur and Eames offering to commit to whatever the hell their relationship is going to be. They love her, improbable as it may seem; she barely feels like an adult, let alone one who's ready to settle down. And the thought that either of them will consider rearranging their semi-nomadic existences to join her anywhere - well. It's not something she would have wished for on a shooting star.

But soon enough she's in Rome, with a driver waiting for her and a sleek black car to take her away. Much to her surprise, Saito is in the back of the car, and absently she wishes she'd thought to check beforehand. Not that that would have done much good anyway; the chairman seems to do what he pleases, which would be really irritating if it weren't so scary. He was able to make Cobb's charges disappear. There's no reason he couldn't make her disappear if he wanted to. For now, though, she appears to be on his good side.

"I hope your journey was pleasant," he offers, and she nods, looking out through the tinted windows at the traffic and the rolling hills that lead to Rome. She hasn't been back to the country in years, and says so.

"Are you fond of Italy, then? I would have thought you would prefer Greece."

"At least my name isn't so unusual there," she says, with a tentative smile. She's as nervous as the day she interviewed for her graduate program. The feeling that everything is riding on the next few hours expands to fill her chest and rise up her throat. Saito leans forward and opens a cube that turns out to be a small refrigerated box, handing Ariadne a blackberry-lime sparkling water.

"Perhaps the trip has been more taxing than you realized," he observes, and she exhales. He's got a daughter a little younger than her, she remembers from some snippet of conversation on the Fischer job. He's not going to swallow her up and spit her out and leave her bones out to dry on the side of the Roman road. It's going to be okay.

They arrive at a hotel and Ariadne follows Saito into a lobby that, thankfully, looks nothing like her creations. She holds the handle of the PASIV case in white-knuckled fingers, leaving her battered suitcase to the mercies of the bellhops. The doors of the elevator reflect back golden blurry images, once more showing a woman barely cresting the shoulder of the man she stands next to. At least she bothered to wear heels for this. 

Behind the door is a suite, pale gold carpeting and windows and beige walls and innocuous art, and a pair of armchairs and sofa arranged around a coffee table. It's a perfect setup, the bedroom through another door, the driver from the car slipping in to stand next to the door, a young woman coming over to assist with setting up the PASIV. Ariadne wonders just how much time Saito has spent dreaming, whether he's gone under since he went to Limbo with Cobb. Maybe not everyone who goes under comes back marked as terribly as Dom and Mal. Maybe it merely opened his mind to the possibilities. Or maybe this is the first time he's gone under since the Fischer job, more than a year ago now. Questions she can't ask him. She settles into the armchair while Saito reclines on the couch, and nods at the assistant, and

The light is green. Everything is green, the grass beneath their feet and the arching hedges that grow up to form a tunnel over their heads, sunlight filtering through in sparks and lances.

"Pretty," Saito says from behind her, and Ariadne presses her lips together. This is it. Time to go. She heads down the tunnel and doesn't wait for him to follow. There's plenty for him to be distracted by: globes of green grapes, sparkling like crystals. If he tries one he'll find it's already filled with heady wine. Getting intoxicated in a dream is fleeting, but the taste will stay in his mouth, dry and tart. Will he notice the ground start to slope upwards, the grass and dirt change to lengths of bark covered in moss? There aren't forks off this path but it curves ever so gently upwards and inwards, and there are strange creatures who will flit through. Birds colored like jewels singing snatches of songs he'll just barely recognize, squirrels with tails like foxes, monkeys with large ears and glowing eyes.

She waits for him at the mouth of the tunnel, bare feet swinging in the breeze. From here they can see that the path was woven through the branches and crown of an enormous tree, one that must spread its roots over miles. The leaves are wide and as long as her arm. Saito joins her finally, one of the squirrels perched on his shoulder, and Ariadne can't help the joyous laugh that escapes her. He laughs too, possibly the happiest she's ever seen him.

"Come on," she says, pulling a leaf off the branch.

"There's more?" he asks, guiding the squirrel to sit in his shirt pocket and taking a leaf of his own. "And how do we get there?"

In answer, she twirls the leaf between her palms and it spins like a helicopter blade. Holding it over her head, she steps lightly off the end of the branch and lets it carry her up and away. Saito is hesitating when she glances back. "Just go! You won't fall!" she calls back, then looks ahead. The updraft is carrying her towards a large cloud, mountainous in size, and then a gust of breeze steers her around and over the lip and a golden city is revealed atop the cloud's peak.

"Remarkable!" Saito says, voice reedy but clear in the air. She lets the breeze carry her up and over before she lets go of the leaf, watching it spiral up and away. The cloud is bouncy and yielding and tufts of it cling to her arms and legs when she lands, damp and cool and solid as cotton candy around her wrists. Ariadne scrambles to her feet and watches Saito land like Mary freaking Poppins. Like he does this every day. The smile on his face looks wide and happy and - really good, like he should spend less time being a serious titan of industry and more time enjoying himself.

"Let me show you around," she says, grinning back, and leads him under the portcullis and through the banquet hall, and they're climbing the southwest tower and

Ariadne wakes to a massive crick in her neck and shifts carefully, stretching slowly. Across from her Saito is sitting up, face calm and impassive as ever, but he catches her eyes and smiles with a flash of the same joy she saw in the dream.

"Miss Ariadne," he says when they're both properly awake, sitting with cups of espresso on the balcony and the bodyguard and assistant behind the French doors. "I should like very much to see what further experiments you have in mind."

"Projects," she corrects, then catches herself. "I mean, they're not really experiments, I'm done with laboratories for now." She sips the espresso and looks at her cup with skepticism; does Saito travel with his own espresso machine? It's not beyond the realm of possibility. Then again, this is Rome.

"Regardless," he continues. "Any assistance you may require I will happily provide."

"What's the catch?" she asks. Eames would probably have a heart attack. Arthur would congratulate her on her boldness. Saito merely glances over the street, one side of his mouth quirking in something that might be a smile.

"The opportunity to see your _projects_. Not much excites me, Ariadne," and she thinks of a man who could buy an airline on a whim because it seemed easier than bribery, and keeps her mouth shut. "But your dreams do. I would like to walk in them again. And you say you can leave them with me, without sharing the same dream each time?"

She nods and explains how the hard drives work, and his eyes light up and she wonders whether this was a very bad idea, and perhaps he senses her distress because he leans forward and sets down his cup and meets her eyes.

"You are right to be wary, Ariadne. But I promise to you that I will not use your name or steal this from you. You say the university is using the technology; we will keep it a secret from them. I will share your name with my... acquaintances who may take an interest in your art. But they will know nothing of the details." He is serious and the weight of his attention makes it hard for her to breathe for a moment. It's more assurance than she expected. Ariadne watches him for another few seconds, then extends her hand. They shake and she exhales. This may be another terrible decision. But so far taking these risks has worked out pretty well.

"I don't think I want to settle in Tokyo, though," she says, taking another sip of her coffee. It's probably more caffeine than she should have after somnacin but she needs something to do with her hands.

"If you are good enough, they will come to you," Saito drawls. "Which reminds me, you may take my plane wherever you need to go. My business here is not yet finished.."

She thanks him, enough that he starts to look faintly uncomfortable, and Ariadne takes herself and the PASIV and her wayward suitcase down and out of the hotel and takes a cab back to the airport. She can't stay in Rome right now, she thinks, there are too many memories and too many resonances. She needs to go somewhere different and clear her head. Standing in the check-in area she looks at the departures board and tries to think of somewhere different, somewhere she can go and rest.

A week later she sends a postcard to Arthur's P.O. box in Chicago, and another to Eames's flat in London: the Fusilier's Arch in front of St. Stephen's Green. On the backs she scrawls the same thing: _I like Dublin. Come see._

 

**23 // and then it all seemed clear**

 

After weeks under the burning blue sky of Athens, the gray clouds over Dublin are soothing as a cool compress over the eyes. Ariadne's sunburn fades as she explores the city, playing tourist in between more serious explorations. She gets texts and calls from Arthur and Eames, and once memorably a snapshot of the two of them, so tangled up that she has to follow the lines of Eames' tattoos to figure out just what she's looking at. That one she saves.

And yet she doesn't miss them. Or rather she does, but she doesn't ache with it. They'll be together again soon. They've said as much, and compared to their previous understandings this is like a double proposal. The weight of the trust they've placed on her is grounding; it keeps her in one place. Everything feels so new and so tentative that she needs something to keep her from spinning off into orbit.

Reading real estate listings is confusing and seems wrong on her own in a hotel bedroom; she keeps looking up to joke about the peculiar abbreviations with Eames or ask Arthur what he thinks about the number of bedrooms (at least two, she thinks, and maybe a third for a study or a library). Instead she wanders the city, taking pictures to send to her boys - they're both older than she is but she persists in thinking of them as boys, and as _hers_ \- and occasionally looking in if she sees a sign about a place that's on the market. There's one spot she keeps coming back to over the course of about a week. Finally she gives in to her curiosity and calls the number for the agency that handles it.

The building is a former whiskey distillery that's been converted into offices and apartments, old stone mashed together with gleaming wood and sparkling glass. It's a touch garish, but the bones of the building are solid and the light inside is good. Besides, she knows Eames will be tickled at the thought of living inside a distillery.

The loft the agent shows her is actually two flats combined; a previous tenant had wanted double the space and made the money available, but was no longer there. Nobody was interested in that much space at the going price, not these days. Ariadne stands and looks at the light pouring in the enormous windows and smiles. "I have a few calls to make," she says.

When they fly in, it's on separate planes - Arthur's coming from New York, Eames from Morocco - but they arrive on the same day and their bags join hers in her hotel room, the one with very little space but a very large bed. She drags them down to the riverside and doesn't think about falling vans (there are no bridges that tall here anyway) and past Croke Park and down to the distillery, and Eames gets this mischievous look that can only bode well. Arthur keeps it in until the agent shows them inside and up, his eyes flicking from spot to spot and probably noting every part of the building's security and what he could improve and what he'd have to add. But both of them take a breath when they walk in the door and see the flat for the first time. It's not as sunny as it was the first time she saw it but it's still gorgeous. And now that she's had the structure in her head for a few days she can see how everything would fit, the three of them moving into the space together, moving _through_ the space and making it home. Arthur and the agent walk off to investigate the other rooms and talk about - plumbing, or something.

Everything seems to be going awfully fast for a moment and she can't quite catch her breath. Eames looks over and he must see something in her face, because he catches her up and twirls her around through the huge open room and she just starts laughing, the sound echoing off the ceilings.

"I'm glad you two are taking this seriously," Arthur says dryly from behind them, and Eames sets her down gently and dips her a little, still laughing as her hair brushes the floor.

"Perhaps I'm thinking of setting up a dance studio," Eames answers, and Ariadne has to smother another fit of giggles. The agent gets a look on her face like she's slightly confused but can't decide whether to make an issue of it.

"There's a dance school on the ground floor," she says finally. Arthur's lips twitch and Eames grins broadly and Ariadne tries not to laugh even harder. She's a mature and responsible adult who is totally ready to buy a property. Eames lets her go and she recovers and the three of them ask more questions and tell the agent they'll speak with her soon. Over dinner they don't even really have to discuss it; Ariadne just looks at the two of them over the plate of samosas and says "Well?" and Arthur and Eames share a glance. Eames nods and Arthur starts talking about how they're going to go about putting the money together for an offer and whose names will be on the paperwork and how maybe they can ask Saito for a favor to get their visas sorted out, and Ariadne is so happy she has to hold her mouth shut for fear of saying or doing something really absurd in the middle of a crowded restaurant.

After dinner they walk back to the hotel, taking turns holding each other's hands and strolling leisurely past the packs of women out for what Eames calls _hen nights,_ then settle in for the evening. They're spread out over the room, Eames and Arthur at opposite ends of the couch and Ariadne sitting cross-legged on the floor, and Eames throws a wad of paper at Arthur's head.

"What's eating you, pet? You look like you're going to be composing bad poetry." His smile is easy, but Ariadne waits. Was today too much? Are they rethinking their decisions to come here, to stay, to choose this path?

"Nothing," Arthur says automatically, then stops and closes his notebook and rubs his eyes. "No. It's not _nothing,_ I - what if I can't work anymore?" And there it is, what none of them have talked about. She breathes out the anxiety and lets herself turn her mind to a new task.

"You can still work. Got to get back on the horse, and other charming metaphors," Eames says, shrugging. "There's no hurry."

"I'm building pretty much constantly," Ariadne adds, looking up from her sketchbook. "And having someone's projections to test it might help."

"A paranoid army?" Arthur asks, face shuttered. "I don't think you want that."

"It's that or see someone, and I somehow doubt you'd be interested in that," Eames replies. "Think of it as exposure therapy. Or just work topside. You're still good at that." Arthur looks unimpressed with that idea.

"Work with me," Ariadne says. "At least for now. I don't know anything about contracts or deliverables or any of that, and you're better at talking to the kind of clients I'll have anyway. Till you feel ready to get started again, whatever that means. And if you want to go dreaming you can come in with me and you'll know it's safe." She puts down her sketchbook and crawls over to sit in front of him, propping her elbows on his knees. "It'll keep you busy, anyway."

"Saving me from my own boredom?" Arthur says, mouth twisting a little. He curls a lock of her hair around his finger. Eames moves to kneel next to him, putting one large hand at the back of his neck and stroking down the line of the tendons with his thumb.

"That's what we're here for, darling," he says. Arthur closes his eyes and leans into the caress and they sit there, folded around each other, and Ariadne wonders if they're hoping as hard as she is that this can actually work.

 

**24 // do you think just like that you can divide this**

 

A few months pass and Ariadne starts to feel settled into the contours of her new life, learning the streets and the grocery stores and the best places for takeaway. Their visas come through suspiciously quickly but completely legally; Arthur installs security systems and Eames shops for curtains and the three of them cause a ruckus testing out sofas and armchairs and mattresses. Her parents ask a lot of questions when she asks them to ship over some of her things from storage. While they're not entirely satisfied with all of her answers they help anyway. Maybe she'll ask them to come visit sometime. And she begins figuring out just what this new job of hers means, what it is to be powered solely by her urge to create and not projects or deadlines or a degree. Arthur slides all too easily into the role of her business partner, though he smirks when she calls him her very own point man after several hours going over grant paperwork and proposals and working up a dossier for the list of names Saito sends her. Eames takes a job or two but doesn't talk about it much with Arthur, and helps Ariadne refine her designs when she needs another set of eyes on them.

Even when she's not using the PASIV, it's all too easy to lose herself in her work for hours. It doesn't help that their loft is the size of a small town. She can sit in the studio drafting or building models or researching fractals and completely miss conversations or music or the sound of the shower. The journal Arthur brought her from Florence fills up with thumbnails and sketches and stories she wants to tell. She has huge file folders bursting with blueprints and drawings and photographs, clippings from magazines, fabric swatches, strips of paper with perfume on them. Her laptop has folders too, landscapes and music files and notes that look like found poetry more than anything else.

Finishing work for the day is like surfacing from underwater and taking huge gulps of air. Some days it's a grind and she thinks she should have finished her degree and taken a nice boring job with a firm. Other days she feels creation sparking off her fingertips and works until someone comes to drag her away and feed her. And then there are days like this one, when she's halfway through a project and waiting for everything to come together and stops at a reasonable hour because she doesn't have much to do. She's been on a kick of sunken islands and researching Atlantis and Kumari Kandam and watching old Jacques Cousteau documentaries and footage from the bottom of the ocean. Maybe she can convince Arthur and Eames to take a research trip. Somewhere warm with lots of clear blue water and overpriced drinks with umbrellas in them.

When she comes out of the studio, Eames is in the kitchen pottering about with mugs and teabags and the kettle is beginning to make the alarming shaking noise that means it's about to boil.

"Hello, love," he says when he sees her, smile lighting his face. She pads over and hugs him, face tucking against his side. He kisses the top of her head.

"When did you get back?" she asks, muffled by his chest. They were supposed to pick him up at the airport approximately twenty-four hours from now, but she's pleased to have him home early anyway.

"Just now. I shouted but I take it you couldn't hear me over that infernal music of yours." For that she pinches him and moves away so he can start pouring the water into the mugs.

"I'm sorry you don't understand the majesty of Sigur Rós," she says, getting the milk out of the fridge. "Is Arthur around?"

"He wasn't here when I got in, but I'm sure he'll turn up." Eames catches Ariadne by her free hand and pulls her back in, tilting her face up for a kiss. It lasts long enough that when he pulls away she realizes her fingers are wet with condensation from the milk jug. "Now that's a proper welcome," he murmurs.

The clank of the elevator warns them and they both look over to the front door, which creaks open to reveal Arthur laden with grocery bags and spattered with raindrops. "Eames," he says, sounding startled but pleased. "I thought you were coming back tomorrow." Eames crosses the space to relieve Arthur of a few of the bags, and the way he leans in to kiss Arthur looks oddly formal. But the happy hum Arthur makes is unmistakable.

"Couldn't stand the dreadful rain any longer, so I took off. I'm sure Cohen will spit tacks the next time I see him for not sticking to the timeline, but he can bloody well cope." Eames takes a look inside the bags, and Ariadne watches the pair of them feeling a swell of fondness in her heart. Not quite fond enough to help put away the groceries, though. "Were you going to cook me dinner?"

"There was no food in the house. And someone is really terrible about remembering to feed herself," Arthur says, walking past Ariadne to set down his bags on the counter and beginning to take things out.

"I'm standing right here," she points out, and he grins, the flash of his dimples still a miracle after all this time.

"And someone else was in another hemisphere. And smells like a plane," Arthur adds over his shoulder as Eames follows him in.

"Very sorry, darling, I'd just got in and wanted a cup of tea. Or would you rather I fall asleep in the shower and drown?" Eames drops his armload and reaches past Ariadne for his mug, downing half the tea with a grimace.

"Of course not. So it went well?" Arthur seems happy to be working with Ariadne, but he misses his old life, and his questions for Eames about the job betray his still-keen interest. Ariadne doesn't dwell on it, just circles around him to start putting things in the fridge. If he wants to start working in dreamshare again, he can. When he's ready. She tunes them out, letting the cadence and harmony of their voices fill her ears, and Eames finishes his tea and heads to the bathroom and Arthur turns on the stereo and puts on something bluesy and hands her a pair of bell peppers and asks her to chop them.

Later, much later, they're all curled on the couch together, Arthur with a book propped on the arm of the couch and Ariadne tucked into his side, her feet resting on Eames' lap and his hands draped over them as he drifts ever closer to sleep. She lets him; jet lag is nothing compared to the disorientation of dreaming, and he snatches rest whenever he can regardless of his circadian cycle. She closes her eyes, wanting to commit this to memory: the two of them bracketing her, warmth and safety and trust, Arthur absently twisting a few curls in his fingers and tugging ever-so-gently at her scalp, the smell of the risotto they made for dinner still heavy in the air and mixing with Eames' soap and tea and Arthur's aftershave and wool all blended till she can't separate it out, Eames' thumbs absently rubbing the pattern of cables on her socks, the lingering taste of the wine in her mouth crisply pale and the sound of distant traffic and the light rain and her own breath, pulsing in and out, regular as the waves.

"Falling asleep?" Arthur murmurs, and she sits up a bit and opens her eyes to see him holding the book closed with a finger marking his place, his other hand resting warm on her shoulder. Eames looks up, sleepy but content, watching them both with fondness and faith.

"No," she says, settling back down. "I'm awake."

 

**Author's Note:**

> A thousand million thanks to alierakieron, my tireless beta and my biggest cheerleader; tons of kisses for everybody who kept me going along the way, especially saynotozombies, to whom I owe a massive debt in my characterization of and writing for Eames. And a huge, huge thank you to my artist cunning_croft, who came up with spectacular art and was incredibly gracious about dealing with my fumbling descriptions and requests and gave me something that made me squeak loudly at work. I have no connection to the Picower Institute, and I am pretty sure they do not have a PASIV device. Section headings and the title are from various Tori Amos songs; a mix of these songs is available for download in the master post on LJ, [here](http://wordsflowout.livejournal.com/7099.html). Arthur's mind palace is based in large part on the Boston production of "Sleep No More" by the Punchdrunk Theatre Company. All errors of geography and plausibility are my own.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Boundless](https://archiveofourown.org/works/368747) by [metonymy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/metonymy/pseuds/metonymy)




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